When fellow College students describe Nadia Ezaldein, they recall a caring young woman who showered kindness on others.
“She had a thoughtfulness that was unmatched,” said Rachel Silver, AB’13, a close friend and classmate. “She was innately perceptive of the people around her and made you feel safe and at home in her presence.”
Ezaldein, 22, died Nov. 29 of injuries suffered in a shooting incident at a downtown Chicago department store where she worked. The fourth-year was majoring in English language and literature.
“This is heart-rending news, and we extend our deepest sympathies to her family and friends,” Karen Warren Coleman, Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services, wrote in a statement issued Nov. 30 to UChicago students. “Nadia and her whole family will be in the thoughts of many of us during this time.”
In a statement provided to the University, Ezaldein’s family thanked the UChicago community for honoring her memory, saying it was a reminder of “why she loved her experience as a student at University of Chicago so much, along with the considerable impact her friends and faculty mentors had on her time there.”
“Words cannot describe the type of person Nadia was in our memory,” the family’s statement said. “She was selfless in nearly every sense of that word.”
Her family said one of Ezaldein’s big decisions when she enrolled in the College in 2009 was choosing between studying science or the humanities. She decided that she eventually wanted to pursue social justice and law.
Ezaldein’s first-year roommate Meher Kairon, AB’13, who came to Chicago from India, remembers how Ezaldein welcomed her. “She made our little room in [Max Palevsky Residence Hall] feel like a home away from home,” Kairon said. “She was always ready with a smile, a story and some sass. She refused to let me feel homesick.”
Kairon said Ezaldein once stayed up with her late into the night to bake an elaborate cake for someone, “just because she wanted to make them feel special.” Ezaldein’s family said that was not a rare gesture, noting that when they spoke with her late at night, she often was busy proofreading essays and papers for her friends or family members.
“We would plead with her to stop so she could get some sleep for herself,” the family wrote.
Ezaldein also is remembered for her commitment to tutoring neighborhood children, and a sense of ebullience that friends said would fill the room. She was always ready for an impromptu snowball fight or an adventure around campus.
“Nadia had a way to make people feel special and feel loved,” said Emily Yuan, AB’13. “When you make someone feel special and loved, they learn to love themselves a lot more.”
Ezaldein’s family wrote that she had an ability to “view people as the best versions of themselves.”
“We hope that her example is one that is shared and remembered,” the family wrote, “and that those who have listened to her story are spurred to achieve closer connections with family and closest friends than ever before.”
The Ezaldein family held a private funeral service.
—Prof. Jacqueline Stewart
