Dijana Muminovic spends time with her father Kemal Muminovic in a hospital room at the Medical Center at Bowling Green on Friday, April 19, 2024.
Dijana Muminovic is a Bosnian immigrant that survived the Bosnian War at 13 years-old with her father, mother and two older brothers. After attending middle and high school, Muminovic pursued a bachelor's degree in photojournalism at Western Kentucky University and a master's degree at Ohio University.
She went on to become a photojournalist, moving back to Bosnia to open the School of Photography in Zenica. Recently, Muminovic worked as a Public Relations Specialist at Medica Zenica, a women’s non-governmental organization that specializes in protecting women and girls.
In October of 2023, Muminovic received news that her father was diagnosed with stage four gastric cancer and moved back to Bowling Green, Ky., putting her career on hold to become her dad's full-time caretaker.
From January through April of 2024 Muminovic was her father's full time caregiver, from 1 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. when her brother got home from work. Because she was with her dad everyday she didn't have a chance to pursue photography. "I've been here in the house (with her father) for, like, 17 to 18 hours," Muminovic said. "We were in my former room, and the thing is, my father was so anxious and if I have to step out, he'll be like, 'how long?' 'I'll be like, two minutes, five minutes.' He's like, 'okay, hurry up.' Even like [a] few minutes was so long for him. ...He was so anxious. I have a list of things, from the moment I walk into the room at like 1 a.m. and until I walk out at like 6:30 p.m. every 3 or 4 minutes, he needs something."
“He was so fragile and so gentle and, I kind of learned more how truly he was, gentle,” Muminovic said.
Muminovic helps her oldest brother with the dirty dishes. One of Muminovic's duties as a caretaker was to run errands and complete chores when she had a break from being by her dad's side. Muminovic had spent much of her week in the hospital with her father and was given a break Sunday morning while her brother visited him. She went back to the hospital later that afternoon to be with her father.
Kemal Muminovic’s official time of death was 12:35 a.m on Wednesday, April 24, 2024. He was 73. Muminovic looks at a casket for her father the afternoon following his death early that morning. Muminovic spent the afternoon alone at the funeral home making arrangements while her eldest brother worked and her other brother arranged a flight from his home in Sweden.
Following her father's death on the morning of April 24, Muminovic spends time in the prayer chapel at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Bowling Green, Ky. "I prayed to be with him (her father) on the last day, [and] I was," Muminovic said. "Actually it wasn't a prayer, it was a feeling I received through the Holy Spirit that I would be the one there. Even if my oldest brother was the most connected to Dad, but he is also handling the situation differently and with more grief, so I felt this is why this moment was given to me."
From left: Friends of Muminovic's father, Dejan Vrban, Ljubica Vrban and his children, Goran Muminovic, Zlatko Muminovic, and Muminovic watch as Kemal Muminovic's casket is lowered into the ground at his funeral on Saturday, April 27, 2024. “For us, it was such an intimate funeral because it was all the closest people [to us] and people that were there even since the time when my mom passed and I was so happy to see them,” Muminovic said.
Muminovic rests her hand on her father's casket before his funeral at St. Joseph Historic Catholic Cemetery on Saturday, April 27, 2024.
Vedrana Weaver hugs Muminovic during her father's funeral at St. Joseph Historic Catholic Cemetery on Saturday, April 27, 2024. Muminovic and Weaver have been friends for over 24 years and Weaver helped Muminovic get through her mom's death while they were in high school.
From left: Goran Muminovic, Muminovic and Zlatko Muminovic hang out together at their home after their father's funeral on Saturday, April 27, 2024. Goran Muminovic went back to his home in Sweden two days later.
After her father's funeral, Muminovic rests on the couch in her family’s home. “I just felt that I had completed my role and my mission through this caregiving process,” Muminovic said. “…I really felt so proud. So fulfilled. It’s crazy to say, I'm not happy that my dad is gone. I wish, of course he lived longer to see us do things in life. But we also have to learn to accept that it's part of life, that death is normal, and whenever it comes, you have to consider it as your reality. And so I did.”
Muminovic prepares to leave on a road trip with her partner, Walker, she recently started seeing. "Dad made me reach out to him," Muminovic said. Walker was her father's primary provider at the hospital and Muminovic's father told her that it was obvious that the two trusted each other. The couple "began truly seeing each other as who we were and appreciating that."
"Next for me? If I'm being honest is probably going back to Bosnia for a couple of months, packing my cats and bringing them here back to Bowling Green and I'm going to take my sweet time," Muminovic said. "I think I'm going to write a book about this experience and just my life in general, before I rush myself into any work that pays. And, I'm going to speak ahead of the time, but probably forming a family or something like that. I feel like that's next for me. It was like something I prayed for at the shrine (in October). I wanted it then, so I asked then to be led to that."