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A grieving widow punished in the Canary Islands for a coronavirus travel ban had to watch the funeral of her husband, former Royal Tara golf professional Adam Whiston, on her mobile phone.
Ona Whiston, who was married to Adam for 52 years, spoke of her heartbreak from the Gran Canaria apartment, where she had to live alone since her travel arrangements to be with her family in Silverlawns, Navan, Co Meath, were suddenly canceled. . in March.
“I have tried many ways to get home, especially since Adam suddenly fell ill several weeks ago and was confined to Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan with what turned out to be terminal lung cancer,” Mona said tearfully.
Hospice
“It all happened so suddenly after the bad news from the doctors at Mater Hospital.
“They decided that chemotherapy would be of no help to him and eventually they told him in Navan that he would receive hospice care in a hospice.”
She said the cancer developed so fast that her 75-year-old husband died just after noon last Saturday.
“There was no way he could get home, but I’ve been with him the whole time through WhatsApp until his death,” said Mona.
“It was great until the Mater’s doctors gave him the results of his tests.
“I was alone and heartbroken when Navan’s nurses told me last Friday that I was near the end.”
Mona said she was with her husband via remote video link every day.
“He was alone in the hospital a day just over three weeks ago when he was isolated and tested for Covid-19. The results showed that he did not have the virus,” he added.
“He would have made it home in time for his passing, but because of this blockage that is causing so much pain around the world.”
“I keep in touch with Aer Lingus and keep trying and hoping to get home as soon as possible to be with my family.”
Mona said that if she had been able to find her way home in the past two weeks, her only contact with her husband would have been through WhatsApp, as she would have had to go through quarantine for 14 days.
“But at least he would have been there for his funeral,” he said.
“It was horrible having to see it on my phone.”
She and her chain smoker husband had been on vacation regularly in Gran Canaria, but this time Adam had decided to stay home.
He had gone to his doctor in February with leg pain and was told that unless he stopped smoking, he would lose his limb.
“He couldn’t bear not being able to play golf and he quit smoking just five weeks ago,” Mona said.
“The tumor developed remarkably fast afterward.”
Mona watched on video yesterday when the short family courtship that accompanied Adam to the Mount Jerome crematorium briefly strayed to the parking lot at the Royal Tara Golf Club, where he was a PGA professional for 30 years until his retirement in 2007.
Club captains John Brennan and Barbara O’Rourke were there with former captains and presidents.
Applauded
The professional golfers Adam had trained and started with formed an honor guard.
As the courtship swept through the parking lot, former Captain Larry O’Rourke paid a brief tribute before the group clapped in tears.
Adam trained with his father, also called Adam, at Dun Laoghaire Golf Club before becoming the Foxrock Golf Club-linked pro for nine years and then joining Royal Tara as his first pro in 1978.
His biggest victory in golf was at the Uniroyal Tournament in Ireland, which led him to receive an invitation to the Canadian PGA tournament, where he played a practice round with Arnold Palmer.
The great golf player told Adam that it had cost him $ 100 after betting that Chi Chi Rodriguez was the smallest player in golf, until he met the five-foot-seven-inch Adam.
Current Royal Tara PGA professional John Byrne said Adam was one of the most generous people he had ever met.
“When his assistants moved to full-time professional jobs elsewhere, he would supply his first stores for them and only say he would pay when he could, as he did with me when I moved to the Tramore Golf Club,” said John.
Former Royal Tara assistant Kevin Grealy also spoke of Adam’s friendliness.
“When I got the professional job at Athlone, he told me to bring a big truck and he filled it with enough equipment to store and open my golf shop,” he said.
Youth
“He just said pay when you can, but he finally refused to accept it.”
Former Royal Tara captain Benny Crooks said Adam was one of the first professionals in the club to introduce classes for youth members, teaching them from the age of six.
Called the Pee-Wees, they included John Byrne, who went on to represent Ireland on an amateur level before starting the game professionally.
Herald
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