“The key is, you have to love them like your own."

February 9, 2017 9:23 AM

'I know they are going to die.' This foster father takes in only terminally ill children
posted by cwest (22 comments total)

I read this article this morning. Stunning. What an absolutely wonderful man.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:27 AM on February 9, 2017 [7 favorites]

I confess I did not get beyond the 3rd paragraph. Despite spending the last 30 years delving into the worst humanity has to offer, since I've gotten kids I avoid this type of stories if I can. I do know one thing though: people like this man or like my cousin who is a palliative pediatrician, they have something in them that makes them able to answer a call most of us can't even hear. As my grandmother used to say, they're earning their way straight into Heaven.
Thanks for posting.
posted by Malingering Hector at 9:38 AM on February 9, 2017 [20 favorites]

Bless Mohamed Bzeek and people like him. They are doing work that most of us could not even bear to consider.
posted by sockermom at 9:45 AM on February 9, 2017 [5 favorites]

An immigrant, contributing mightily to America.
posted by praemunire at 9:47 AM on February 9, 2017 [46 favorites]

I read this last night and couldn't even begin to wrap my head around having the strength to do what he's doing.
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:57 AM on February 9, 2017 [1 favorite]

$1700 a month for that, and "full time" doesn't even begin to describe the amount of work that he's putting in.
posted by Sequence at 9:58 AM on February 9, 2017 [8 favorites]

Faith, hope, and love.
posted by radicalawyer at 9:58 AM on February 9, 2017

Someone put up a gofundme for him yesterday and it's up to $80K already.
posted by higginba at 10:09 AM on February 9, 2017 [16 favorites]

they have something in them that makes them able to answer a call most of us can't even hear.

Beautifully put.
posted by not_the_water at 10:16 AM on February 9, 2017 [4 favorites]

I spoke to Mohamed Bzeek last night. He wept over reaction to story & donations. "How can I thank all these people?" A tweet from the author of the article, Hailey Branson-Potts.
posted by cwest at 10:30 AM on February 9, 2017 [16 favorites]

I'm not a religious person, or even a believer really, but if there's any work that's holy, it's work like this.
posted by yasaman at 10:38 AM on February 9, 2017 [22 favorites]

"How can I thank all these people?"

Thank *you*, sir.
posted by notsnot at 10:44 AM on February 9, 2017 [10 favorites]

Even "regular" (if that word can even be applied) foster parenting can be full of the kind of tragedy that breaks the human spirit. This man is something very special.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:21 AM on February 9, 2017 [3 favorites]

There aren't really competitions that award people just for being the best, most human, human beings they can be, but if there were, this guy would be an Olympic medalist. I mean, most of the time, I feel like I'm a pretty good person, but man, I am not in this guy's class.
posted by jacquilynne at 11:33 AM on February 9, 2017 [5 favorites]

Thank you for sharing this tribute to the beauty and hope of humanity. If you're interested, there's a documentary about a woman in the Bay Area, Susan Tom, who adopts profoundly disabled children (not all with terminal illness). I believe you can watch it on YouTube here.
posted by stillmoving at 12:19 PM on February 9, 2017 [5 favorites]

Sigh it figures that the literal one decent thing happening in the world right now would be stuck behind a broken whitelist request, which remains up no matter how many times I whitelist the site.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 1:15 PM on February 9, 2017

Goddamnit I should not have read that at work. Beautiful and heartbreaking.
posted by Existential Dread at 1:47 PM on February 9, 2017 [1 favorite]

This man is truly an angel. This coming from an atheist.
posted by Uncle Grumpy at 6:09 PM on February 9, 2017 [3 favorites]

My college roommate's mother did very similar work; she had been a pediatric nurse but had to retire when she lost her hearing. She fostered the very sickest babies, babies with AIDS, babies born with serious drugs in their systems, babies with feeding tubes or major heart defects. (This was a while ago when it was very hard to find foster families for AIDS babies. It's not so hard these days now that universal precautions are well-understood.)

They had had 20 infants in about 8 years prior to my roommate starting college. Around half of them survived and went on to more permanent foster placements.

I mean to be honest I found it relatively shattering when her mother visited us at college with a different baby every four months or so. I can't say "I don't know how she did it" because I got to watch her do it up close and personal for four years and I DO know how she did it and why she did it, but watching it third-hand (as the friend of the child of the person doing it) was plenty heart-wrenching. It was hard to understand then; it's both easier and harder to understand now that I'm a parent, when I 100% understand the strength a parent can muster to care for a sick or dying child, and I 100% understand how horrible watching that is.

She had a picture of every child she's ever fostered on her wall, with her biological children's baby pictures, all in a row. It was a heartbreakingly long row.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:35 PM on February 9, 2017 [7 favorites]

For the sake of thirty-six such as him, God spares us all.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:53 PM on February 9, 2017 [11 favorites]

I don't often find a use for the word 'righteous' in its serious sense, but Mr. Bzeek surely is a righteous man.

And it made me reflect that true greatness is a title bestowed by others, and not something one can take for oneself.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 6:54 PM on February 9, 2017

gofundme update 4. Margaret Cotts, the woman who started the campaign for Mohamed, tells a little bit about herself and why she set up the account.
posted by cwest at 10:55 AM on February 10, 2017 [2 favorites]