Goodbye can be a very tough word.
Saying goodbye is one of the hardest things we do.
The last goodbye is too often heartbreaking, too often it leaves us dealing with mortality, struggling to find words of comfort for those left behind.
Saturday, in Tampa, Fl., the golfing community will say its last goodbye to Dawn Coe Jones, one of Canada’s favorite golfing daughters. She played the LPGA Tour for more than 20 years but we will remember her most for being a great wife, mother, friend and a shining star in her community.
The LPGA community has sent its love as has her native country of Canada.
Dawn Coe spent her growing-up days in small-town Canada — Lake Cowichan in British Columbia, a scenic place where literally a river runs through it. The golf bug found her while she was working at March Meadows Golf Club in Honeymoon Bay. She took to the game and it loved her back. By 1982, she won the British Columbia Amateur, then won it again the following year. With her game blooming, she captured the Canadian Amateur and that would set her on her life’s path.
The LPGA Tour was her dream and she found it. She would win three times out there, contended often and was the first Canadian woman to win more than $1 million on the tour, eventually surpassing the $3 million mark. She won the 1992 Kemper Open, the 1994 Palm Beach Classic and the 1995 Tournament of Champions. The 90s were her glory days and that’s when she met a Tampa golfer named Jimmy Jones, who would become her husband.
In 1995, the couple presented the world with Jimmy Jr. Today he is a collegiate golfer on the rise at the University of South Florida and the reigning Florida Amateur champion.
The Canadian Golf Hall of Fame inducted Dawn in 2003 then the British Columbia Hall of Fame 10 years later.
Dawn loved golf but she loved her family more.
A true Canadian, she was right there when the Tampa Bay Lightning won the Stanley Cup. Canadians love their golf but their hockey is akin to religion.
Dawn Coe Jones became a solid part of her north Tampa community. She was there for the high school golfers, there for juniors, there for anyone who want a pair of professional eyes on their golf swing.
Life was good and no one loved life more than Dawn Coe.
That’s why it hit everyone so hard when they heard the word “cancer.” That’s why it hit even harder when the word “incurable” was attached to the form of the disease that aggressively invaded the bones in her legs. Dedifferentiated chondrosarcoma was what doctors called it. Coe knew it was a battle she couldn’t win but it didn’t matter. She was a fighter, a competitor who would not give up.
She fought hard. That sort of spirit is part of someone who spent more than 20 years of their life competing for a living.
Never quit, never give up.
Dawn Coe Jones lost her battle last Saturday.
We will gather this weekend to say goodbye, the toughest of all goodbyes, the final goodbye.
But the spirits of people like Dawn Coe Jones always find a way to live on.
Her smile won’t be forgotten, neither will the way she lived her life.
Husband Jimmy and son Jimmy Jr. will carry on, as she would want them to.
It won’t be easy but they will.
Yes, this goodbye to Dawn Coe Jones, age 56, comes way too soon.
Way too soon.
