 Cynthia "Cindy" Dougherty is seen in this 1980 photo with daughter Jennifer, now 31.
|
TORONTO - Jennifer Waites wept this week over a lifetime of her late mother's photos.
The images show a dark-haired little girl, a slender teen, a young mom and then the final pictures as a grandmother. They reveal a Cynthia "Cindy" Dougherty smiling at the world that an out-of-control motorist tore her from in 2007.
"She's like a ghost ... I didn't get a chance to tell her I love her and say goodbye," Waites said.
"My mom used to say, 'Don't cry, Miss Chickadee, tomorrow's a new day, and we'll always have tomorrow,'" Waites, 31, said. "She never had her tomorrow."
The first of Dougherty's two children moved to Calgary, visiting her native Ontario only occasionally. A single mom whose marriage ended six months after her son's birth, Waites resettled for a new life with Ben, 11.
She recently became engaged to high school boyfriend William Donaldson, who offered "to take care of me and I fell in love with him."
Emotionally scarred by the crash that killed Dougherty, 49, and close friend, Mariarosa Delsass, 44, in October 2007, Waites is working and rebuilding her life.
Her mom's memory is painful but a reminder of the strong-willed, loving woman.
Born April 27, 1958, the daughter of Evelyn and Jerome Lobsinger grew up in Kitchener.
The day Dougherty and "Mar" were killed, they went shopping for home care supplies for Evelyn, a widow diagnosed with cancer, "who didn't want to die in hospital," Waites said. "My mom quit her job to care for her, but after she was killed, my grandmother died in a hospital.
"I almost buried my whole family within one year," she whispered.
Before marrying Derrick Dougherty in 1998, Waites' mom raised her and brother Dustin McGinn alone.
"She was a fighter," her daughter said. "She had tenacity. She never gave up on anything or anyone."
Fond of beaches, her mom one day met Dougherty, who kept a boat on Georgian Bay.
In his victim impact statement read in court Jan. 20, the widower said he fell in love "as soon as I saw her eyes."
He called her "the most giving person I ever met."
Cynthia, in turn, told Waites "she'd met the most wonderful guy."On the fateful day, Dougherty glanced at his rear-view mirror after hearing an horrendous crash while driving towards their coffee shop rendezvous.
He ran back, too late.
"I wish this was some kind of nightmare from which I will wake," Dougherty said. "They never had a chance."
A decade earlier, he introduced her to co-worker Murray Osborne, then to his friend's wife, Dalsass. They became like sisters. Dalsass never had children, but doted on those of friends and relatives, plus her Dante Alighieri Catholic Academy students.
"She was more like an aunt to me," Waites said, calling her "a kind and gentle person."
Dalsass -- born Nov. 26, 1962, to Italian parents -- was a model student and high school valedictorian who began teaching special needs children in 1987.
She was named Teacher of the Year by her union in 2006.
She was "an educational soldier," Osborne told a hushed courtroom on Jan. 20, as confessed killer driver Steven Machado watched from a defence table.
When they met in 1989 at a friend's party two years before marrying, "I was immediately drawn to her beauty and smile," he said.
The night before her death, they watched a TV show together: Ghost Whisperer.
Osborne told court Dalsass and Cynthia Dougherty were buried "side-by-side.
"Mar's voice is still on the background of my answering machine," he said. "It's hard to let go."
ian.robertson@sunmedia.ca
