A strange feat of a man named bzik. Muhammad devoted more than twenty years of his life to caring for terminally ill children. One for all of California.

04.07.2020

The surname of a native of Libya, Mohammed - Bzik - sounds telling to the Russian ear. Of course, there are people who twirl a finger at his temple behind his back: the man has a quirk, look, he is crazy - the same as his late wife. You can think so too. You can even laugh at Mohammed - if you have the courage. But you can't disrespect him.

The Strange Woman Don

Caring for such a girl is not an easy task. But Mohammed had nowhere to go, and Don's secret attracted him even more to her.

Only a year later, she let the boyfriend into her life. It turned out that Don had a child - not her own, of course, because she had never been married, and she received a strict upbringing. Foster.

Actually, he's not alone. - It took several more months before the girl revealed new details to Mohammed.

- How many? Two? Three? he asked. Contrary to Don's expectations, the news about the child did not become something terrible for the young man. And even the number of children did not seem to frighten him, he was simply interested. The eldest child of ten in the family, Mohammed loved children, loved when there were a lot of them: they run, jump, play pranks, ask to play with them - what could be more beautiful and more natural?

“Come and see for yourself,” she finally breathed.

Marriage is not Hollywood

She had one adopted child, but she turned her small house into a real shelter, a transit point for children for whom the guardianship authorities were looking for adoptive parents who urgently needed to be removed from families where it became too dangerous, etc. Therefore, she found it difficult to give a quick and clear answer about the number of children. And also, I was afraid. She will say, as it is - "five", Mohammed will consider her crazy. So many thought, too many. Don didn't give a damn about them, but Mohammed didn't.

And he, looking at all this small-caliber company, located in the modest house of his beloved, took it, and made her an offer - without a ring, without getting down on one knee in a chic restaurant, as is customary in Hollywood films. Just like that - with all your loving heart. Yes, and there was no time for them to breed pink drool: work up to the throat.

What was Don afraid of?

They were different. Very few of them liked to run, jump and play pranks. Almost no one knew how to play. Generally.

Some of the children were very weak. Some are scared to death. Some are sick.

He sometimes dropped his hands. Don was not afraid of anything. Only she could warm a teenage wolf cub, who in her hands turned into an affectionate kitten in a matter of weeks.

Only she could look without fear at children with congenital pathologies of the arms, legs, head - and as if not to notice them.

Only she could listen to their stories for hours, nodding and smiling quietly, stroking the babies, lulling them to sleep until they fell asleep - and those stories sometimes resembled thriller scripts that they write in nearby Hollywood, only scarier.

But nothing could frighten the brave Don.

“No, there was something,” Mohammed recalls. - Beetles and spiders. She was scared to death of them, even on Halloween she shied away from costumes and toys. She was funny.

Don loved all the children who came into their house.

She took them to professional photo shoots - even the most, shall we say, non-photogenic, being firmly convinced that ugly children do not exist in the world.

At Christmas, she and Mohammed threw grand children's parties with gifts, where they invited other children. Don collected sponsorship money for the holiday throughout the year.

Death on Independence Day

The girl lived in the family for a very short time, and the doctors did not promise anything. On July 4, while the couple were bustling about preparing a festive dinner (Independence Day), she stopped breathing. “Her death cut me to the very heart,” says Bzik. “I couldn’t recover for several months.”

When Mohammed finally recovered from his grief, he and Don made a decision. Strange for a “normal” person, but completely logical for “crazy” altruists who live by the principle “if not me, then who?”

The couple decided that from now on they would take only such children to their house - terminally ill, terminally ill, those whom no one would ever take again, those who did not have long to live in this world.

“But this does not mean at all that their life should not be happy - to the extent that this is possible,” says Mohammed. I know they are sick. I know they will die soon. But as a human being, I am obliged to do everything in my power for them, leaving the rest to God.

The saddest order of the doll studio

Who did he remember more than others? Hard to say. Mohammed carefully keeps family albums with photographs of children. All dear, all relatives. Probably the most beloved are those who suffered the most.

For example, there was a boy with short bowel syndrome who was in the hospital 167 times in his 8-year life. He could not eat solid food, but Mohammed always seated him at the family table in front of an empty plate (after feeding, of course), so that the child would not feel rejected.

There was a girl with a cerebral hernia who lived only 8 days after the couple took her from the hospital.

The girl was so tiny that clothes for the funeral were sewn for her in the studio for dolls. Mr. Bzik carried her coffin in his hands, like a shoebox ...

Crystal Adam

A tiny "crystal" boy, a dwarf suffering from osteogenesis imperfecta. His bones could break at the slightest touch: when they changed his diaper or put on a sock.

Parents never hid from their son how sick his brothers and sisters were and that they would soon die. They inspired him that he was stronger than them - and so Adam goes through his difficult life. He also knows how to accept death and suffering as part of life - something that makes small pleasures much more significant and meaningful than most people tend to think.

Today Adam is 19. He weighs just over 30 kg. The young man moves around the house on a homemade skateboard, which his father made from a small ironing board.

He lays down on it with his whole body and rolls on the wooden floor, gently pushing off with his hands. Adam goes to college, studies programming, gets to the place of study on his own in an electric wheelchair. Mohammed is proud of his son and calls him a real fighter. He brings him up alone.

How the Iron Don broke down

Always close to illness, death, suffering - the iron woman Don Bzik could not come to terms with her own illness.

She fell into the deepest despondency. She lay exhausted after another attack and tormented herself - and her husband - with questions. Why me? For what? After all, I did only good for people - and how much more I could do. Why do I need this disease?

Mohammed tried to calm his wife, cited their children as an example - so small and patient, but the result was only another family scandal.

This went on for over 10 years. In 2013, they had to divorce, and Don died a year later. When Bzik talks about his dead wife, he can hardly hold back his tears.

“She was always stronger than me,” he says. “She was able to cope more easily with the illness and death of our children.

One for all of California

Mohammed leaves home only for the mosque on Fridays. At this time, a nurse remains with his adopted daughter, whose services are paid by sponsors.

1-2 times a week he visits with the girl, his adopted daughter, the local hospital - that's all the walks. He puts the child in a stroller, wraps him in a blanket, attaches a dropper, takes a thick folder with medical prescriptions and - go ahead, since the hospital is not very far away, and the climate in California is warm.

"Visiting" is putting it mildly. Mohammed practically lives there. The guardianship service finds it itself. There is no other person like him in the entire state of California. No one else is ready to take care of terminally ill children. No one is able to love them like family, knowing that the time of the funeral will soon come.

According to the Department of Family and Children Affairs, out of 35,000 children registered here, approximately 600 are in constant need of medical care and care. “Of course, we will place them in special shelters,” says department coordinator Melissa Testerman, “but these children are in desperate need of foster parents. Where to get them?

We have one Mohammed. Only he is able to take a child that everyone else will refuse.

Until recently, he continued to take into the house and those for whom social services were looking for foster families in a hurry, but now he has stopped: the forces are not the same. He is already 62. He will still be able to take care of his own son and one little adopted girl, but he is no longer capable of more.

Not for the faint of heart

The worst thing is that he understood: “he will die” is not hyperbole, not an attempt to pity him or put pressure on him.

The children adopted by Mohammed very often lived much longer than the doctors predicted. The most striking and amazing example is the girl living in his house now.

Jenny (her real name is not disclosed: such is the law) has a terrible congenital pathology - the so-called "brain herniation", or encephalocele. Mohammed already had two children with the same pathology, so he takes care of her competently.

What is an encephalocele? For the faint of heart, skip this paragraph. At birth, part of the baby's brain burst out of the skull. She immediately underwent surgery to remove this open part. But not only does a child have only half of the brain, the rest does not develop. Jenny can't see, can't hear, she's completely paralyzed, and has seizures every day. Around the clock, she is chained to a drip with a nutrient solution and medicines. In order not to suffocate in a dream, the girl sleeps sitting. Bzik is on the couch nearby. He generally got used to little sleep.

Mohammed dresses his daughter like a princess, carries her in her arms, kisses her, and talks to her.

“I know she can't hear,” he says. I know that many people think I'm crazy. This doesn't concern me at all. My daughter is human. She has feelings. She has a soul. And I will continue to do what I think is right.

When Mohammed took the girl from the hospital, she was two years old, the doctors said that they could not do anything else, and the child would live in this world for no more than a month.

Princess birthday and other joys amid death

Medicines for sick children. Photo from metro.co.uk

In December, Bzik, Adam, and a caregiver named Marilu celebrated Jenny's sixth birthday.

Mohammed invited biological parents to the celebration. They did not dare to come.

Oh what a birthday it was! Jenny was dressed up in a long red and white dress and matching socks (dad is a man of taste). Mohamed took her hands and clapped them: "I'm already six!" Then he lit six candles on the cake and held it up to his daughter's face so she could feel the warmth from the flickering lights. Then, of course, everyone sang “Happy Birthday”, he pressed his daughter to him, tickled her with his beard, Jenny sniffed the smoke from blown out candles with her sensitive nostrils - so tasty and even, it seems, smiled a little.

Yes, yes, she smiled. Mohammed (and Jenny's attending physician agrees with him) assures that the girl's life is by no means continuous suffering. There are moments when she is quite satisfied and even cheerful - after all, she does not know another life, except for the one that fell to her lot.

An outsider would be horrified at these moments to hear this sick child screaming terribly. And this means that now she is not as bad as usual, that she is in a good mood, and she asks her father to take care of her. Clinging to Mohammed, she calms down. Things are good. Dad is nearby. And nothing else is needed.

“I know that she will die soon,” says Mohammed. “I know that I will grieve for her, probably the most. After the death of some children, I wept for three days in a row. But what can you do? I do what I have to do. They need a loving person nearby. It does not matter either religion or origin, we are all human. And death - which of us will escape it.

Mohammed Bzik intends to continue taking terminally ill children into his home as long as he has the strength to give them good care.

And if he doesn't have the strength, he will help in some other way. Otherwise it is impossible. Otherwise he will not be able to sleep at night: “These children never had a family. I take them and they stop being thrown. They die in the family, they die in love - that's what matters."

In Los Angeles, many people know 62-year-old Muhammad Bzik. This sturdy bearded man seems formidable and unyielding, but behind his stern appearance hides an incredibly kind heart. For more than 20 years, Mohammed has been caring for terminally ill children. Abandoned, lonely babies fall into the hands of Bzik, who otherwise would quietly die in hospital beds. However, thanks to Muhammad, these crumbs, perhaps for the first time in their lives, felt love and care.

Over the years, Muhammad buried more than 10 children. Some died in his arms.Bzik now spends long days and sleepless nights caring for a 6-year-old orphan who is bedridden with a rare brain disease. The girl is blind and deaf, besides, her arms and legs are paralyzed and she suffers from attacks of pain every day.

The adoptive father is a quiet, devout Lebanese Muslim living in the US city of Azusa.
His only desire is to let the little girl know that she is not alone in this world. The doctor, who has been observing the baby since birth, says that she is alive only thanks to the efforts of Muhammad. Moreover, moments of happiness finally appeared in the life of the crumbs.

I know she can't hear or see. But I still always talk to her,” the man says. - I support her and play with her. She has feelings and she has a soul. She also deserves good human relations.

District Adoption Officer Melissa Testerman explains: “When someone calls us and tells us that certain children have only a few days to live, the only name that comes to mind is Mohammed Bzik, because he is the only one who adopts hopeless children. ".

The County Department of Adoption examined 35,000 children, 600 of whom are the most in need of medical care. These children desperately need foster parents. Unfortunately, there is only one such person, and that is Bzik.

Mohammed, 62, the eldest of his parents' 10 children, came to the US in 1978 from Libya.A year later, he married a girl named Dawn, who had adopted an orphan before marriage.Dawn inspired Muhammad to open his own orphanage in 1989. The children were often sick, and for the first time Muhammad Bzik faced the death of an adopted child in 1991.

It was very painful when she died,” Bzik says, looking at a photo of a small, thin girl in a white dress lying in a coffin.

By mid-1995, the Bzik family decided to take care of terminally ill children.Three years ago, Muhammad lost his wife, but the idea of adopting seriously ill children did not leave him. And to this day, he continues to give joy and love to these fragile, defenseless children. Mohammed cares not only about adopted children. His own son, 19-year-old Adam, also depends on his father for everything. A young disabled person suffers from osteogenesis imperfecta, a pathology that makes the bones very fragile and weak.

When Bzik is asked why he does what he does, the man replies that every child needs a family. Mohammed needs no other reason. He works for the sake of children, perceiving each adopted baby as his own.

Spouses Mohammed and Don Bzik with a "speaking" surname accepted terminally ill, dying children into their house. Since Don died, her husband has continued the "family business".

The Strange Woman Don

Men love strange women - yes, yes! Moreover, they love so much that they are ready for any feats for them. With a strange girl named Don Mohammed introduced a friend. She seemed older than her years. They, college students in the California city of Azusa, had only study and entertainment on their minds, and Don seemed to be inward, never laughing, but always somewhere in a hurry. Where? Did not answer.
Caring for such a girl is not an easy task. But Mohammed had nowhere to go, and Don's secret attracted him even more to her.
Only a year later, she let the boyfriend into her life. It turned out that Don had a child - not her own, of course, because she had never been married, and she received a strict upbringing. Foster.
Actually, he's not alone. - A few more months passed before the girl revealed new details to Mohammed.
- How many? Two? Three? he asked. Contrary to Don's expectations, the news about the child did not become something terrible for the young man. And even the number of children did not seem to frighten him, he was simply interested. The eldest child of ten in the family, Mohammed loved children, loved when there were a lot of them: they run, jump, play pranks, ask to play with them - what could be more beautiful and more natural?
Don honestly tried to count: how many of them?
“Come and see for yourself,” she finally breathed.

Marriage is not Hollywood

Don took the child when she came of age. She dreamed about this since childhood. Her grandparents became foster parents for so many children, their house looked like a kindergarten. Unfortunately, the parents did not follow their example, and Don decided long ago that it was she who would continue the family tradition.
She had one adopted child, but she turned her small house into a real shelter, a transit point for children for whom the guardianship authorities were looking for adoptive parents who urgently needed to be removed from families where it became too dangerous, etc. Therefore, she found it difficult to give a quick and clear answer about the number of children. And also, I was afraid. She will say, as it is - "five", Mohammed will consider her crazy. So many thought, too many. Don didn't give a damn about them, but Mohammed didn't.
And he, looking at all this small-caliber company, located in the modest house of his beloved, took it, and made her an offer - without a ring, without getting down on one knee in a chic restaurant, as is customary in Hollywood films. Just like that - with all your loving heart. Yes, and there was no time for them to breed pink drool: work up to the throat.

What was Don afraid of?

Now, together, they could do much more. Having married, the Bzik spouses sheltered dozens of Azusa's children in their house. They taught foster parenting courses, Don lectured, and gradually became one of the state's top experts on family placement. She was invited to solve complex issues on a par with psychologists, doctors and policemen. And Mohammed stayed with the children.
They were different. Very few of them liked to run, jump and play pranks. Almost no one knew how to play. Generally.
Some of the children were very weak.
Some are scared to death.
Some are sick.
He sometimes dropped his hands. Don was not afraid of anything. Only she could warm a teenage wolf cub, who in her hands turned into an affectionate kitten in a matter of weeks.
Only she could look without fear at children with congenital pathologies of the arms, legs, head - and as if not to notice them.
Only she could listen to their stories for hours, nodding and smiling quietly, stroking the babies, lulling them to sleep until they fell asleep - and those stories sometimes resembled thriller scripts that they write in nearby Hollywood, only scarier.
But nothing could frighten the brave Don.
“No, there was something,” Mohammed recalls. - Beetles and spiders. She was scared to death of them, even on Halloween she shied away from costumes and toys. She was funny.
Don loved all the children who came into their house.
She took them to professional photo shoots - even the most, shall we say, non-photogenic, being firmly convinced that ugly children do not exist in the world.
At Christmas, she and Mohammed threw grand children's parties with gifts, where they invited other children. Don collected sponsorship money for the holiday throughout the year.

Death on Independence Day

Mohammed faced the death of a child for the first time in 1991. It was the farmer's little daughter. During pregnancy, she inhaled pesticides that were sprayed on the fields. The girl had a terrible pathology of the spine. In fact, he was completely absent from her. From head to toe, the baby was clad in a corset.
The girl lived in the family for a very short time, and the doctors did not promise anything. On July 4, while the couple were bustling about preparing a festive dinner (Independence Day), she stopped breathing. “Her death cut me to the very heart,” says Bzik. “I couldn’t recover for several months.”
When Mohammed finally recovered from his grief, he and Don made a decision. Strange for a “normal” person, but completely logical for “crazy” altruists who live by the principle “if not me, then who?”
The couple decided that from now on they will take only such children to their house - terminally ill, terminally ill, those whom no one will ever take again, those who have not long to live in this world.
“But this does not mean at all that their life should not be happy - to the extent possible,” Mohammed says. I know they are sick. I know they will die soon. But as a human being, I am obliged to do everything in my power for them, leaving the rest to God.

The saddest order of the doll studio

During this time he buried 10 children. Your children. Some died in his arms. When Mohammed is asked how he manages to cope with his voluntary feat, he replies: "You just need to love these children as if they were your own." Then, of course, it will hurt more. But that's later. For now, too much to do.
Who did he remember more than others? Hard to say. Mohammed carefully keeps family albums with photographs of children. All dear, all relatives. Probably the most beloved are those who suffered the most.
For example, there was a boy with short bowel syndrome who was in the hospital 167 times in his 8-year life. He could not eat solid food, but Mohammed always seated him at the family table in front of an empty plate (after feeding, of course), so that the child would not feel rejected.
There was a girl with a cerebral hernia who lived only 8 days after the couple took her from the hospital.
The girl was so tiny that clothes for the funeral were sewn for her in the studio for dolls. Mr. Bzik carried her coffin in his hands, like a shoebox ...

Crystal Adam

In 1997, the couple had a son, Adam. Some will see here a mockery of fate, others - a test. The boy had a congenital genetic pathology. “God created him this way,” was all that Mohamed said about this.
A tiny "crystal" boy, a dwarf suffering from osteogenesis imperfecta. His bones could break at the slightest touch: when they changed his diaper or put on a sock.
Parents never hid from their son how sick his brothers and sisters were and that they would soon die. They inspired him that he was stronger than them - and so Adam goes through his difficult life. He also knows how to perceive death and suffering as part of life - something that makes small joys much more significant and meaningful than most people tend to think.
Today Adam is 19. He weighs just over 30 kg. The young man moves around the house on a homemade skateboard, which his father made from a small ironing board.
He lays down on it with his whole body and rolls on the wooden floor, gently pushing off with his hands. Adam goes to college, studies programming, gets to the place of study on his own in an electric wheelchair. Mohammed is proud of his son and calls him a real fighter. He brings him up alone.

How the Iron Don broke down

In 2000, Don fell ill. She began having convulsive seizures, after which she lay exhausted for weeks. She could hardly move around the house, did not go out into the street, because she did not want the seizure to catch her in public. But she led such an active lifestyle, performed so much, helped so many people.
Always close to illness, death, suffering - the iron woman Don Bzik could not come to terms with her own illness.
She fell into the deepest despondency. She lay exhausted after another attack and tormented herself - and her husband - with questions. Why me? For what? After all, I did only good for people - and how much more I could do. Why do I need this disease?
Mohammed tried to calm his wife, cited their children as an example - so small and patient, but the result was only another family scandal.
This went on for over 10 years. In 2013, they had to divorce, and Don died a year later. When Bzik talks about his dead wife, he can hardly hold back his tears.
“She was always stronger than me,” he says. - She was able to cope with the illness and death of our children more easily.

One for all of California

Left alone, Mohammed did not stop taking the children to his home. However, he had been alone for a long time, and there was no need to wait for help from the sick Don. Since 2000, he has never rested - no holidays, no weekends. True, in 2010 he allowed himself a 6-week luxury: he went to visit his family in Libya. It's all.
Mohammed leaves home only for the mosque on Fridays. At this time, a nurse remains with his adopted daughter, whose services are paid by sponsors.
1-2 times a week he visits with the girl, his adopted daughter, the local hospital - that's all the walks. He puts the child in a stroller, wraps him in a blanket, attaches a dropper, takes a thick folder with medical prescriptions and - go ahead, since the hospital is not very far away, and the climate in California is warm.
"Visiting" is putting it mildly. Mohammed practically lives there. The guardianship service finds it itself. There is no other person like him in the entire state of California. No one else is ready to take care of terminally ill children. No one is able to love them like family, knowing that the time of the funeral will soon come.
According to the Department of Family and Children Affairs, out of 35,000 children registered here, approximately 600 are in constant need of medical care and care. “Of course, we will place them in special shelters,” says department coordinator Melissa Testerman, “but these children are in desperate need of foster parents. Where to get them?
We have one Mohammed. Only he is able to take a child that everyone else will refuse.
Until recently, he continued to take into the house and those for whom social services were looking for foster families in a hurry, but now he has stopped: the forces are not the same. He is already 62. He will still be able to take care of his own son and one little adopted girl, but he is no longer capable of more.

Not for the faint of heart

During a Christmas dinner at the department, assistant regional coordinator Rosella approached him and tearfully begged him to take another baby: "He will die without you." Mohammed was silent for a long time. But in the end he squeezed out: “No. I can not".
The worst thing is that he understood: “he will die” is not hyperbole, not an attempt to pity him or put pressure on him.
The children adopted by Mohammed very often lived much longer than the doctors predicted. The most striking and amazing example is the girl living in his house now.
Jenny (her real name is not disclosed: such is the law) has a terrible congenital pathology - the so-called "brain herniation", or encephalocele. Mohammed already had two children with the same pathology, so he takes care of her competently.
What is an encephalocele? For the faint of heart, skip this paragraph. At birth, part of the baby's brain burst out of the skull. She immediately underwent surgery to remove this open part. But not only does a child have only half of the brain, the rest does not develop. Jenny can't see, can't hear, she's completely paralyzed, and has seizures every day. Around the clock, she is chained to a drip with a nutrient solution and medicines. In order not to suffocate in a dream, the girl sleeps sitting. Bzik is on the couch nearby. He generally got used to little sleep.
Mohammed dresses his daughter like a princess, carries her in her arms, kisses her, and talks to her.
“I know she can't hear,” he says. - I know that many people think I'm crazy. This doesn't concern me at all. My daughter is human. She has feelings. She has a soul. And I will continue to do what I think is right.
When Mohammed took the girl from the hospital, she was two years old, the doctors said that they could not do anything else, and the child would live in this world for no more than a month.

Princess birthday and other joys amid death

In December, Bzik, Adam, and a caregiver named Marilu celebrated Jenny's sixth birthday.
Mohammed invited biological parents to the celebration. They did not dare to come.
Oh what a birthday it was! Jenny was dressed up in a long red and white dress and matching socks (dad is a man of taste). Mohamed took her hands and clapped them: "I'm already six!" Then he lit six candles on the cake and held it up to his daughter's face so she could feel the warmth from the flickering lights. Then, of course, everyone sang "Happy Birthday", he pressed his daughter to him, tickled her with his beard, Jenny sniffed the smoke from blown out candles with her sensitive nostrils - so tasty and even, it seems, smiled a little.
Yes, yes, she smiled. Mohammed (and Jenny's attending physician agrees with him) assures that the girl's life is by no means continuous suffering. There are moments when she is quite satisfied and even cheerful - after all, she does not know another life, except for the one that fell to her lot.
An outsider would be horrified at these moments to hear this sick child screaming terribly. And this means that now she is not as bad as usual, that she is in a good mood, and she asks her father to take care of her. Clinging to Mohammed, she calms down. Things are good. Dad is nearby. And nothing else is needed.
“I know that she will die soon,” says Mohammed. “I know that I will grieve for her, probably the most. After the death of some children, I wept for three days in a row. But what can you do? I do what I have to do. They need a loving person nearby. It does not matter either religion or origin, we are all human. And death - which of us will escape it.
Mohammed Bzik intends to continue taking terminally ill children into his home as long as he has the strength to give them good care.
And if he doesn’t have the strength, he will help in some other way. Otherwise it is impossible. Otherwise he will not be able to sleep at night: “These children never had a family. I take them and they stop being thrown. They die in the family, they die in love - that's what matters."

Los Angeles resident Muhammad Bzik began caring for terminally ill children back in the late 80s. They did it together with Don, his wife. Now Muhammad is 62, he is a widower and continues to take care of children already alone.

He takes only the most severe cases - incurable diseases in completely lonely abandoned children.

"Key condition: you must love them as if they were your own."

Mohammed knows how to do it. His son Adam, at the age of 19, is completely dependent on his father. He was born with brittle bones and dwarfism. Skeletal fragility is a bone disease called osteogenesis imperfecta*, and these people need special care throughout their lives.

“I know they are doomed. I do everything I have to do as a man, and the rest is up to God.”

Mohammed is currently taking care of a 6-year-old girl with a rare brain defect: she was born blind, deaf and paralyzed and needs constant care. Muhammad Bzik is one of the few adoptive parents in the state of California who is trained and certified to care for children with disabilities who cannot be cared for by relatives.

“She can't hear me or see me, but I'm talking to her. She has feelings, she has a soul, she is a living person. Dr. Suzanne Roberts, the girl's pediatrician at Los Angeles City Hospital, told The Times: "I've been seeing her since birth. By the age of 2, we had exhausted all possibilities to improve her condition. She spends 22 hours a day on life support devices. And she is still alive only thanks to the constant care that Muhammad gives her. When she is not in pain and in a good mood, she may cry if she feels lonely. She can't speak, but she communicates her needs perfectly. There are moments in her life when she is happy, and it's all thanks to her adoptive father."

Mohammed came to the US from Libya in 1978 to attend college and stayed here for the rest of his life. In addition to caring for her own son and a paralyzed girl, Bzik takes care of children with terminal brain and gastrointestinal lesions.

Melissa Testerman, coordinator of the Los Angeles Department of Guardianship: “When we are told that one of the children without a family needs to be transferred to a hospice, we know only one person in the city who can really help children in their last days. This is Mohammed Bzik, a man with a huge soul.”

* From the editor: Osteogenesis imperfecta (impaired bone formation) is a genetic disease in which the bones of the patient lack collagen, or its quality is not up to standard. Without it, bones become brittle and weak. This disease is incurable, occurs in 6 out of 100 thousand newborns. On average, a child with osteogenesis imperfecta breaks bones 10 times a year. People who are most affected by the disease suffer fractures more than 200 times in their lives.