As the San Jose Sharks hockey players ran out of their locker room to hit the ice before Game 4 against the Los Angeles Kings, diehard fan Nick Gallagher sat in his wheelchair with his fist out.
Most of the players fist-pumped him back to his joy. His dream was coming true. His whole life he wanted to meet the Sharks up close and on Tuesday night…he did.
“Ever since I became a fan, I’ve always wanted to meet them and I got the chance to meet them,” Gallagher said with a big smile on his face.
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.
Queens resident Raymond Finerty, who’s battling terminal cancer, gets dying wish to travel to Masters Tournament
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.