Sitting at home taking in the sea views from the balcony, President Emeritus Guido de Marco yesterday felt he was seeing life from a fresh perspective, one week after a battle for his life in hospital.
“I feel I have been born again. Life is beautiful. I am seeing life with new eyes and I’m looking to the future,” he told The Times.
Prof. de Marco, 79, was in a critical condition last Thursday after he developed complications before undergoing a scheduled angioplasty to widen an artery in his heart – and he defied medical expectations with his recovery.
On Friday, he was brought round from an induced coma and started communicating and responding to treatment. A day later he was taken off the life-support machine, and on Tuesday he was discharged from hospital, albeit remaining under the medical team’s care.
“I felt I couldn’t stay at hospital any longer, and on the advice of the doctors I left,” he said.
He is now very happy to be back home with his wife Violet, who is constantly by his side, ensuring he gets his rest. He chuckled that she hid his mobile phone yesterday after he spent all morning answering calls from well-wishers.
Prof. de Marco is loved by many and he received a never-ending flow of encouragement and prayers while in hospital.
On what appeared to be his death bed, Prof. de Marco feared he would not be leaving hospital at all.
“I was scared I would leave my wife behind. I depend on her, and she on me. Living a life no longer connected to her was going to make me very unhappy,” he said.
His wife’s and children’s presence throughout this ordeal has been one of the driving forces that gave him the strength and will to live.
“When I came round from the coma I no longer felt I was going to die. I felt I was going to remain. I’m here to stay... for now at least.”
He said that the same way his autobiography, The Politics Of Persuasion, speaks about a “presidency with a purpose”, he now planned to “live life with a purpose” in spite of any illness he may have.
When asked if he planned to take things a little bit easier, he laughed and his immediate reaction was “I don’t want to slow down”.
“I plan to do more. Life is so precious, yet it is lost so easily. I’m loving life. There was a time I thought it was the end of it but I will build on the future.”
During his long political tenure, Prof. de Marco served as deputy Prime Minister, Minister of the Interior and Justice, and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Justice. He presented Malta’s application for EU membership in July 1990. In September of the same year, he was elected president of the United Nations General Assembly.