Mary Fenech Adami - Eddie's rock

Mary Fenech Adami’s demise last Friday saddened a nation, and triggered the same question across the nation: How will this affect her statesman-husband?

This question epitomises the role Mary Fenech Adami played in her husband’s long and illustrious political career. From wife to a lawyer she married in June 1965, over the years she found herself to be the wife of an MP who went on to become the Nationalist Party leader, Opposition leader, Prime Minister and President of the Republic.

Throughout all these years Mary Fenech Adami stood by her husband and patiently took on the responsibilities that came with his office.

Mother of five, Mary Fenech Adami dedicated her life to them, ensuring them protection, education, and a sound Catholic upbringing. Quiet and reserved as she may have given the impression, to many who knew her, Mary Fenech Adami was identical in character to her husband’s tenacity.

She won the nation’s admiration in 1979 when she forgave a mob of Labour thugs who chased her down Main Street, Birkirkara, pushed her into the house and started to ransack her home.

She remained reluctant to talk about that incident and put it secondary to Raymond Caruana’s political killing in Gudja, describing that tragic 5 December 1986 as her “saddest day.”

The tumultuous events that characterised the early 1980s led Mary Fenech Adami to assume an increasingly more important role behind the scenes of her husband’s rise.

Richard Cachia Caruana, who for years served as Eddie Fenech Adami’s closest aide, describes Mary Fenech Adami as “part of the solidity behind the person.”

He goes on to explain that she provided the statesman with constant support and was probably his best gauge on public opinion as she met people every day.

“It came natural to her to meet and help people every day as she went about her daily errands, and treated everybody the same, from VIPs to the normal man in the street,” he said.

Charles Borg, Eddie’s most loyal and trusted canvasser who went on to become his personal driver, sobbed in sorrow at Mary Fenech Adami’s passing. “I lost my mother when I was nine years old. I won’t say I considered Mrs Fenech Adami as my mother, but she came close enough to being so... she was indeed a woman who gave love and respected everyone.”

Charles knows all too well the significance of Mary Fenech Adami within the Fenech Adami household. Since her hospitalisation late on Saturday evening when she collapsed with heart failure, Eddie Fenech Adami never budged from her bedside.

His constant presence at Mater Dei Hospital’s intensive care unit, showed a man  reciprocating a woman who gave him her all, and patiently endured the weight of office. She was indeed Eddie’s rock.

Main Street in Birkirkara was engulfed in an eerie silence as soon as the news of Mary Fenech Adami’s demise was official. Neighbours waited for the family as they quietly returned from hospital.

One woman told me that Mary Fenech Adami’s chair at St. Anthony’s chapel just down the road stayed empty during daily mass. “We are all going to miss her,” she said.

“Mum has finally rested,” Birkirkara mayor Michael Fenech Adami said as he stood outside his mother’s house late on Friday afternoon. Soon after he was joined at home by his three brothers, and his sister.

Political parties have suspended all activities in respect for her demise, while a nation has united in mourning, rekindling a nostalgia for the Fenech Adami era.

A nation’s heart is beating for Eddie Fenech Adami at this time, and wants to share his sorrow. Together with his inseparable companion, Eddie Fenech Adami always preached solidarity. A nation is reciprocating that value, and is silently analysing the significance behind Eddie Fenech Adami’s strong position against divorce, because family was key to Eddie, and his life with Mary symbolised that strong position he took. Her demise now has the potential to be a catalyst for re-uniting a currently scarred and divided Nationalist Party.

Mary Fenech Adami will be missed by a nation that has been taught a lesson in integrity and family values.