{"id":275527,"date":"2022-09-06T16:37:38","date_gmt":"2022-09-06T21:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=275527"},"modified":"2022-09-11T18:39:43","modified_gmt":"2022-09-11T23:39:43","slug":"man-fosters-life-limiting-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/man-fosters-life-limiting-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Man fosters children with life-limiting conditions: ‘It’s heartbreak. But we should help each other’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mohamed Bzeek<\/span><\/a>\u00a0believes that every child has worth and dignity, and deserves love. Too many children with life-limiting conditions in foster care live out their last days alone, afraid, or abandoned because of their conditions \u2014 but Bzeek has a place in his heart for those children. For the past 32 years, he has been giving them a place in his home. Caring for these children was something his wife, Dawn Bzeek, had started doing before they met, reports the <\/span>LA Times<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Dawn\u2019s grandparents had been foster parents, and she looked to them as her example. As an adult, Dawn routinely opened her home to children who were in danger, in emergent need, or whom no one else would take. She organized toy drives for them, took professional photos of them, and did everything possible to make sure they were loved. After she married Mohamed in 1989, he learned from her example, and the two of them cared for children who had no one else to love them Many were very sick, and the couple embraced those children in their last moments so they would not feel alone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The two cared for many different children, even teaching classes at the local community college about caring for foster children and dealing with death. In 1995, they decided to care exclusively for children with terminal illnesses. In 1997, their biological son Adam was born with dwarfism and osteogenesis imperfecta (brittle bone disease).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When Dawn passed away in 2015 after her own illness, Mohamed continued to care for these children in and with Dawn’s memory. More than 80 children have been through his home, and Mohamed says he has loved every one of them as his own son or daughter. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI consider them as my biological kids. I never, never think about them as foster kids. And it really gives me great joy when I see them laughing and see a smile in their face,\u201d he said in a <\/span>video<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Perinatal hospice helps families bond, grieve, heal after life-limiting prenatal diagnosis<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n