Rafaelo Varga: “I am grateful to my mom for giving birth to me” / “For Life” Magazine, no. 4 – Spring 2015

by Alexandra Nadane

He never knew his father, a former delinquent. And his mother was 14 when she gave birth to him. The new revelation of TV’s X Factor is an unwanted child born from a teenage pregnancy. He is grateful to his mother for choosing to have him, and misses the father who was absent from his life. Although he has never had a family, living in foster care until the age of 17, he feels strongly that family means fulfilment. He knows that God desires every child and wants to be a hand of God for institutionalized children.

What do you think a person needs in life to feel fulfilled?

I believe that money doesn’t make you happy. It can contribute to your happiness, but the most important thing is to do what you like and try to see the good in everything. Try to fight to do good and be simple, because that’s the most important thing. Some people think they are happy because they have money or wealth, but they are not. It’s important to be ourselves and especially to come down to earth. Life is not all roses, there are many problems. I have problems, too, but I try to enjoy everything I have. Happiness comes from your soul. You can be happy even if you’re sick, even if you have no money.

What is the hardest thing for children in foster care?

The absence of their parents. A child living there wants very much to have a mother. A mom and a dad, but especially a mom. Things happen without them realizing it. For example, in my case, the worst thing was the lack of love, of affection. After waking up from my midday nap, I felt an emptiness in my soul, a pain that I didn’t know how to express. That pain was the lack of parental affection. A child needs a lot of encouragement. In the children’s home, you are cared for by one or another, and you don’t obey and don’t do the right things, because you don’t feel like doing it in the absence of your mother.

Was there anything that gave you the strength to keep going while you were there?

Do you know what was the most important thing that gave me the strength to move on? The fact that I didn’t give up. I was so beaten down there. In the children’s home, you get a lot of beatings, but I didn’t give up. I fought a lot and I had the will to prove that I’m not nobody and I can do something with my life. I think I was motivated by the desire to help my classmates when I grow up and the desire that when I grow up I don’t beat up my classmates, because that’s the way it is there, the big ones beat up the little ones. I wanted to show that I wasn’t going to be like that, because everyone was telling us that we would become like that.

But why do you think that happens?

First of all, it’s the lack of parental love, which turns into hatred, especially when you are beaten a lot. The moment you are beaten, you are subjected to all kinds of abuse and you are beaten for nothing, you see yourself in a world where you can’t fight. You have to shut up, endure and wait for time to pass. I believe that God took care of me because he cared for me. I’ve been through a lot, but I feel like I’ve been through nothing. I feel like I haven’t experienced all this, even though it’s all imprinted in my subconscious and I still have some problems. For example, at night I wake up sweaty or scared. It’s very important for a child in a children’s home to have support, to talk to a psychologist. Another painful thing is moving from the center. I’ve been through that five or six times. For example, I was moved from Satu Mare to a town 50 kilometers away from the city. It’s very hard, it’s like being uprooted, like being uprooted from everything. You have no contact with anyone, there are new people, everything is new. And the first day I got there, I was just beaten. But look, I fought and I never gave up.

You said in an interview that you thank your mother for giving birth to you. What made you say that?

First of all, she didn’t abort me. I’m a supporter of life. I believe that every child in a mother’s womb is given by God and the mother has no right to take its life, just as the doctors don’t have that right, either. Even if you do not want that child, some families will want to adopt it, there are associations which support expectant mothers and offer them counseling. Mothers who are going through a crisis can ask for help. I believe that life is a gift and it is not that little soul’s fault. Who am I to stop it from living?

Some people believe that a child doesn’t deserve to live if its parents cannot assure certain conditions for it. What do you think?

I honestly believe that, if God left that child in a woman’s womb, God will take care of that child. God does not care about wealth or financial situation, for God every child’s life is very important. I thanked my mother for not aborting me, for giving me life, because she at least gave me a chance, even though she abandoned me. It’s very important to give life to a child, because you let it live, so that it can have a purpose in the world, it was born to do something. Maybe through that child you will be happy. Even if you are poor or in trouble, the joy of that child will change everything. I am grateful to my mother for giving birth to me, because she could very well have aborted me or done anything else to traumatize me during pregnancy and give birth to a child with problems.

What makes you want to help other people in the future?

I want to help them, because I know how hard it was for me at the children’s home and I think many other children are going through the same ordeal. I am against violence, because violence begets violence. It happened that I was beaten many times. Once they made us clean the yard and they beat us because we didn’t pull all the grass out of the asphalt. A few years later, when I got out of the children’s home, I went to a family and helped pull the grass out of the asphalt and I expected to be beaten, I expected to be hit. I realized it was a horror for me to chop wood or do anything else, because the beating was coming. When I got the grass out and I was no longer in the children’s home, it felt so good, it was so nice that I didn’t have to be beaten! Life in foster care meant a lot of pain in my heart and the habit of being beaten all the time. I will soon start the Association of Forgotten Souls, which aims to help children who grew up like me, support them and eliminate violence in foster care centers. I will talk to children in centers to never give up on their dreams. I know it’s very hard to be there and struggle to love those around you, but it can be done. I want to help them. Who knows what talents are out there that are not being seen, because they are not being valued and children are not being supported?

What are the thoughts you want to pass on to the young people of your generation?

I think I am different than my generation. First of all, I don’t like computer games, I don’t like things that don’t have a purpose and don’t leave a positive imprint on you. A lot of young people nowadays are captivated by games, aggression, clubs and things that I call nonsense. I’m 17, but I have other principles. I want to go to two colleges, I want to fight to survive, because life is hard. I tell all the readers of this interview to follow me on the Rafaelo Official Facebook page, and to those who need support, I will continue to help them.