It’s a story that breaks the heart, yet warms it up all the same.
It’s a story that breaks the heart, yet warms it up all the same.
It’s a story that breaks the heart, yet warms it up all the same.
Mohamed Bzeek, a Los Angeles resident, has spent the last two decades as a foster father, but not just any foster father – Mohamed focuses his attention on terminally ill children, whose illnesses make them face certain death. Bzeek is the only foster parent in the county known to take in terminally ill children.
“The key is, you have to love them like your own,” Bzeek says. “I know they are sick. I know they are going to die. I do my best as a human being and leave the rest to God.”
Currently, he’s caring for a young girl who suffers from blindness, deafness, paralysis and daily seizures. “I know she can’t hear, can’t see, but I always talk to her,” he said. “I’m always holding her, playing with her, touching her… she has feelings. She has a soul. She’s a human being.”
Bzeek is a devout Muslim. Over the course of his fostering, he has buried about 10 children, with some of them even dying in his arms.
Melissa Testerman, a DCFS intake coordinator who finds placements for sick children, says about him: “If anyone ever calls us and says, ‘This kid needs to go home on hospice,’ there’s only one name we think of. He’s the only one that would take a child who would possibly not make it.”
Bzeek rarely leaves his home, other than attending hospital appointments and the weekly Friday prayers at the mosque. He is truly a moral exemplar and a living commentary on social responsibility, not just for Muslims, but for humanity as a whole.
You can donate to his wonderful work over on his GoFundMe page, here.
