MESA, Ariz. -
A valley woman’s final wish was to have her entire family together for four days over Mother’s Day weekend.
Thanks to an organization called the Dream Foundation, her wish came true.
May 11 could be Heidi Markus’ last Mother’s Day.
The 54-year-old has colon cancer and her prognosis isn’t a good one.
“Recently the doctor told me that I had less than a year, actually he gave me six months,” said Heidi Markus.
Raymond Finerty isn’t concerned with how many days he has left to complete his bucket list. He’s not even sure what else is on the list. But he knows he has scratched off the most important item: attending the Masters Tournament.
A quiet and unassuming Irishman, Finerty, 59, was diagnosed with mesothelioma three years ago. The incurable, rare cancer was traced to work he did in an auto shop, where he was likely exposed to asbestos in brake linings.
In March, Finerty was surprised at his doorstep in Queens, N.Y., by the Dream Foundation, an organization that grants wishes to adults with terminal illnesses.
Raymond Finerty has long dreamed about visiting the sacred links of the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia for the Masters tournament.
And after three years battling cancer, the terminally ill 59-year-old Maspeth resident is about to wake up in a world where that dream is a reality.
The Dream Foundation, the first and largest national wish-granting organization for adults and their families suffering life-threatening illnesses, is fulfilling Finerty’s final wish to visit the famous golf club in April and attend the decisive round of the Masters, one of the four major championships in professional golf.
Raymond Finerty is a 59-year-old retired carpenter who has a voice thick with his native Ireland and strong working man hands, and doesn’t remotely resemble somebody who is dying. He lives with his wife, Mary, and daughter, Sheila, in the tidiest brick house you have ever seen, in Maspeth, Queens, and it was quite a place to be Tuesday afternoon, when seven visitors rang the doorbell and presented him with balloons, T-shirts, hats and a cake decorated with a golf ball and a tee and lots of green.
The little house has had an acute shortage of good news of late, so here was a welcome respite on a chilly spring day.
As he sits in the stands overlooking Auto Club Speedway this weekend, longtime NASCAR fan Danny Mell knows it could be the last time he hears firsthand the roaring engines, smells the burning rubber and sees the checkered flag drop.
No matter.
Mell, a 57-year-old Fresno man who has terminal lung cancer, is as excited as a child on the night before Christmas about his trip to Fontana.
“I haven’t been to a race in so long, it’s, ‘ Yeah!’ ” Mell said Thursday with a fist pump and a huge smile.