A woman of no self-importance

Whenever Mary Fenech Adami talked about the event that thrust her, unwillingly, onto the national stage, she did so without fuss, without excessive emotion and without any hint of self pity.

This after thugs had beaten down the door of her family home and, as she courageously walked into the house to look for her children inside, the men who invaded the house beat her too. Black and blue, even severing her ear after ripping away one of her earrings.

Throughout the pain and commotion she remained calm and had the presence of mind to find her children, who had escaped via the roof to a neighbour’s home.

Yet, together with her husband, who was then opposition leader, she slept at the family home that night.

Mrs Fenech Adami never complained, never expressed ill feeling and never questioned the sacrifices her husband’s arduous and at times dangerous political career forced her to make.

Yet, although shunning attention on herself, she never hid either. How many women, or men for that matter, would have the courage to allow photos to be taken of them after being beaten?

How many women would have been so utterly determined that the mission her husband had embarked upon must be completed, for the good of the nation, whatever the personal cost? Precious few, we would wager.

If she was asked a straightforward question, she would provide an equally straightforward answer. Yet throughout she never wavered from the very private role she had herself devised: to support her husband whatever the circumstances and to be the fulcrum of the family.

When one of her sons, Beppe Fenech Adami, was once asked about his mother, he remarked that people were even more fond of her than they are of his father. It is not difficult to see what prompted such a remark.

Like her husband, she was always true to herself. Like her husband, she was in her element in simplicity. Yet she had an easy manner with people that drew them to her – friends and political foes alike.

Irrespective of the high offices her husband held, she still went to the shops, she still talked to people about their problems, she still cared. And as a person who oozed honesty from every pore, she did not hesitate to show it.

This woman who, from a young age, behaved with her neighbours like a nurse dedicated her life to bringing up her children and helping others – with soothing words or kind, often unseen, deeds.

When she plunged her heart and soul into the Malta Community Chest Fund – the first official role she ever had, rather late in life – Mrs Fenech Adami had said in a rare interview: “I’ve lived my life around people. I know the trials and tribulations that life holds and I’ve always tried to help others... I enjoy helping people. You forget about yourself and focus on helping someone else.”

It was this lack of focus on herself, and total focus on an objective or other people, that endeared her to so many others. Together with a faith that was resolute till the very end, and a character that was indomitable.

We extend our condolences to Eddie Fenech Adami because he has lost a loving wife of 46 years, and to their children. But Malta has lost something too – a reassuring tower of strength whom everyone would have been proud to call their mother.