“To any question, love is the answer” are her words Varvaras Tetiwhen asked about her decision to become a foster mother to a total of five children.

Mrs. Teti was 32 years old when she decided to proceed with childbearing for a little girl just a few months old, with health problems, and since then she has not stopped having her arms open for the children of the institutions. Today, at the age of 71, she has been a foster mother to five children, has one biological child and has been appointed legal guardian for a child with disabilities.

Varvara and Thomas Tetis opened their home in Thessaloniki to children from the institutions, who mainly embraced those who would not be “favored” in any adoptions as they had health problems.

“I was 32 years old and working as an administrative employee at the Hippocrates hospital when I learned about a newborn girl who was born with thrombocytopenia and heart disease, was abandoned by her parents and was going to be institutionalized. Having by then already had two miscarriages, I decided to adopt it without a second thought. After some time I became pregnant and gave birth to a baby girl, who came from a twin pregnancy, in which I aborted the other fetus,” Ms. Teti tells APE-MBE.

Having now two daughters and an undiminished active interest in the children of the institutions, after a few months she becomes a foster mother to a few-month-old boy with heart disease who is finally adopted by a couple after a year.

“When Christos left, because that’s what the baby was called, I adopted another little boy, also named Christos, who was 7 years old and found himself in an institution after being abused. He stayed with my family for about two years and then his father claimed him and took him,” says Mrs. Teti. Then, another little boy of a few months, Odysseus, finds “refuge” in the home of the Teti family where he stays for 2 years until he is finally given up for adoption.

“The sixth child who entered our home was a three-year-old girl who returned to her family after two years. Caroline came next and stayed together for 10 years.” As Mrs. Teti explains, Caroline was born during her mother’s refugee journey from an African country but decided to leave her in an institution in Thessaloniki from where she was taken.

“She grew up in our family and around the age of 12 she went to live with her mother and now she lives with her in France and is 23 years old.”

The fostering journey for Mrs. Teti ended with Nikolas, a child she placed in her family from 4 months old without being deterred by his severe disability as he suffers from mental retardation, down syndrome and autism. Today my Nikolas is 22 years old and unfortunately I am forced to “share” him with Agios Dimitrios because my husband is seriously ill and I cannot manage Nikolas’ great needs. I go and see him at the institution and so do my daughters but my big worry is what will happen when I die. I live for this child, he makes me incredibly happy and I am very worried about his future” she says with a strong emotional charge.

“I wanted to give love”

As she says, Varvara Teti received a lot of love from her mother and she, in turn, wanted to give love for that and she always turned her gaze to the children, especially to those with disabilities. She hates being called a “heroine” for her work and when asked, especially about Nikolas, why she became a foster mother since she couldn’t make him useful to society because of his disability, she replies: “I didn’t make him useful, I made happy”.

He urges everyone to become a foster parent, to offer love to children who live in institutions and do not have the exclusive embrace of a mother and a father. She herself will not stop giving from her soul store until she passes away. Besides, he actively participates in the Network of Foster Parents and Volunteers for the extra-institutional social care of minors “Right to the Family”, in the Agios Dimitrios foundation and in the Workshop of Special Vocational Education and Training of Thessaloniki.

“Do you have love to give? Give it!” ends up.