![]() And they have three grandchildren.Īlthough they were both bowling at the same alley in Harmar, that wasn’t where they met. Her marriage to Hal is the second for her, too. “It’s an amazing story and one worth hearing.”Ī native of the Pulaski area north of New Castle, Hal came to live in the Pittsburgh area with his first wife after being discharged from the Marines and getting a job with Medrad, where he worked for 34 years.ĭee was born in Oakmont and grew up in the New Kensington area. “What has been really important to Hal is people have an understanding of what he went through when he was in the war,” Penrose said. In a second on Friday, they covered his life after Vietnam, including his first wife and meeting Dee. ![]() In her first session with Hal, he talked about how he became a Marine. It’s something for posterity they can always have a connection to their loved one.” Sometimes it’s just helpful for families to hear their loved one’s voice after they pass. “A lot of men want to walk through their life again. “Some folks have a need to make sure that their story lives on past the time of their dying,” she said, adding that men do it more than women. Penrose suggested they do audio recordings of Hal telling his stories for his family. She volunteers at Heritage Hospice in New Kensington, where she knows Lauren Athey Penrose, who works as a hospice music therapist. ![]() This is all going to be new to me.”ĭee was after Hal to write a book about his life and experiences in the military. “We’ve kind of learned to accept his fate, but, every once in a while, it will hit you,” she said. “She’s the only reason I wanted to live since I met her.”īelieving there’s a reason for everything, Dee Shaffer, 75, said Hal is leaving her slowly because he wants to make sure she is taken care of, and that she’ll be OK after he’s gone. If not for his wife of nearly 27 years, Shaffer confesses he probably would have killed himself to escape the pain. “I’ve had so much pain and suffering in my life, I’m ready to go,” Shaffer, 74, said from the hospital bed in the living room of his Lower Burrell home with his wife, Dee, beside him.Ī Marine Corps veteran who survived a grenade explosion in Vietnam, Shaffer has endured four types of cancer, and the grueling radiation and chemotherapy treatments that followed, and is now terminal. ![]()
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