Friends Say Diminutive Silvestry Was Larger Than Life

What she lacked in physical size, she more than made up for in spirit, exuberance, dedication and determination.

So said friends and former teammates of Dominique Silvestry from her days in the rowing club at Binghamton University.

Silvestry, 26, of Yorktown Heights, died in the early morning of July 27 in an accidental fall from a scenic overlook in Deerpark. State police said Silvestry was sitting on the rock ledge along Hawk’s Nest on Route 97 when she fell backwards approximately 50 feet, striking her head.

She was the daughter of Raquel MacGregor, director of the Learning Garden Day Care Center in Yorktown Heights. She worked as a massage therapist at Angelface Day Spa, and formerly was employed as an administrative assistant at Century 21 Mulvey Real Estate, both in Yorktown Heights.

Silvestry was a 2009 graduate of Binghamton University, where she majored in linguistics. She also was a member of Binghamton Crew, the student-run rowing club, serving as coxswain for the men’s varsity rowing team. In a crew, the coxswain is the member who sits in the rear (facing the front), steers the boat, and coordinates the power and rhythm of the rowers. She was on the fall teams from 2006 to 2008, and the spring teams from 2007 to 2009, according to an official alumni roster from the rowing club’s website.

‘An Inner Light’

Four fellow former members of Binghamton Crew shared fond memories via email of Silvestry as a teammate and friend.

Stacey Edmond said she was on the crew team with Silvestry for three years and was her best friend. She said they remained close after college.

“Dominique was so many things to so many people that she borders on [being] indefinable,” Edmond said. “I think the most important thing about her was her character. She shined with an inner light, with a positivity that cannot be found in the common man. There was an undeniable joy that existed within her, something that hardships may have dimmed, but could never extinguish.

“Dominique lived. She absolutely lived,” continued Edmond. “She was never afraid of anything. She believed that everything was accomplishable as long as you tried, and tried again, and then kept trying more.

“ … She was always there for me. She was my best friend and my confidant. She was there to talk to about anything and everything. Sometimes she gave helpful advice, and sometimes not so helpful. But it didn’t matter whether she could help you or not; all that mattered was she would brighten your day and lift your spirit. She was always there for anyone who needed her.”

Interestingly, Edmond said death was among the topics of their many deep conversations.

“She told me that death was just a big sleep,” Edmond said. “That the afterlife was just one long nap until you are needed again on earth. After all the living we do all day every day, we deserve some rest, some relaxing time to ourselves. And you know, she was okay with this. She was okay with death.”

But Edmond said such dark discussions were a rarity.

“The most important part was the laughter,” she said. “Our job was to laugh at each other. It was impossible to spend time with Dominique without laughing.”

Megan Farley, a friend who was also a coxswain for the rowing club’s men’s team from 2006 to 2008, said she has more stories about Silvestry than she could begin to tell.

“And I think that’s the thing about Dominique,” said Farley. “She lived life so fully I think she may have managed to fit a few in the short life that she had. But that doesn’t make it any better.”

Farley said Silvestry was the kind of person who “always got everyone laughing, was always doing something crazy, was always positive.”

​​​​​Kait Sweetman, who rowed for the women’s team at Binghamton, said that although she wasn’t a close friend of Silvestry’s, she has “so many great memories of the girl who was so small that when she tried to row the oar [it] pushed her backwards and almost out of the boat, but who had one of the biggest personalities on the team.

“Coxswains are generally small, but Dominique was so far under the 120 lb. minimum that she usually had to take a 30 lb. sandbag at each race, which she made her rowers carry, since she could barely lift it,” Sweetman said. “Speaking with another coxswain since Dominique ‘s accident, she described Dominique as being too small to fit all that joy and positive energy inside her, so it just radiated to everyone around her.”

Farley echoed that sentiment.

“The biggest thing that I could tell you about Dominique, if I could tell you one thing, is that she had so much positive energy that it just couldn’t be contained in that little body – and it spilled out into everyone around her,” said Farley. “That much positive energy, that spirit, that fireball that she was – I can only believe that it had to go somewhere when she passed, and if I can take any comfort in all of this, it is finding out where that positive energy is going to end up in this world.”

Sweetman said Silvestry “was incredibly committed to Binghamton Crew. She joined the team in the fall of 2006 and spent the next three years waking up at 5 o’clock every morning to bundle herself in layers of clothing and sit in a boat for two hours in the miserable Binghamton weather. The crew team practiced in the dark, before the sun rose. Conditions were frequently foggy, rainy, and absolutely freezing. Dominique was always there, always ready to support her boys and made sure they had the best practice possible.”

Sweetman also recalled that those practice sessions were complicated by Silvestry’s degenerative eye condition.

“By the time she coxed for Binghamton Crew, she couldn’t see in the dark very well,” said Sweetman.

Despite that limitation, she said, “Dom never had an accident, and was one of our better coxswains. The team used to joke that she must have used sonar, because other coxswains with better eyesight crashed the boats on occasion, but she never did.”

The Lost Glasses Story

Silvestry’s vision problems factored into a story about her that coincidently was shared by both Farley and another teammate, Rob Correnti.

“Dominique was the coxswain of my lightweight four boat,” Correnti said. “In the spring of 2008, at our home race, the Busfield Regatta, moments before pushing off from the dock, Dom’s specialty prescription eyeglasses slipped from her face and into the water.”

“She was always wiggling and moving and jumping, so this was bound to happen,” Farley recalled. “They were very expensive prescription glasses. And the whole squad underwent a rescue mission for those glasses. Everyone was jumping and diving into this disgusting river and no one thought twice about it, because she would do that for anyone else.”

As race time neared, Correnti said, the crew was forced to abandon the search for the glasses.

“Giving up, Dom took an emotional moment to collect herself before the race,” he said. “But she knew what she had to do. Relying solely on blurry visual cues and her knowledge of the home river conditions, she navigated a perfect course while exuding a confidence to the rowers that allowed us to focus only on our strokes with complete trust in her abilities.

“It was just another one of those Dominique moments. Moments when she would rise to any occasion, no matter how difficult or uncomfortable. Rowing is a sport of sheer willpower and determination; this is especially true for the coxswain. And Dominique had more willpower and determination than most when it came to performing at her best, all for the sake of her teammates.”

​​Enduring Spirit

Edmond’s fond recollections of Silvestry were punctuated by her expressions of grief at the loss of ​​her dear friend. But she also seemed to find comfort in the belief that Silvestry’s outsized spirit will help her to endure.

“Dominique will be my strength in times of need, a voice of reason when necessary, and my joy and happiness in times of celebration,” she said. “… Dominique is not gone. She lives on inside of all of us. Everyone talks about how there is a hole inside of them, like a piece is ripped away. But my soul is so full. My soul is so full knowing that she loved me, and that I will never be alone.”

In addition to her mother and her many friends, Dominique is survived by father, John Silvestry of Teaneck, N.J.; her step-parents; Richard MacGregor of Yorktown Heights, and Marina Silvestry of Teaneck; grandparents Gladys Kalo and Richard MacGregor Sr.; an uncle, Charlie Lopez; siblings Jonny Silvestry, Jaclyn MacGregor, Jennifer MacGregor, Jeffrey, Sandra Welker and husband Bill, Marihug and Scott MacGregor; niece Elizabeth MacGregor; and cousins Denise, Jeffrey and Charlie.

Service Information

Visitation for Dominique Silvestry will begin on Tuesday, July 31 from 2-4 p.m. and 7-9 p.m. (with a service at 8:30 p.m.) at Cargain Funeral Homes Inc., 418 Route 6, Mahopac.