OVERLOOK - It's 30 years ago today that Robert and Georgetta Shaffer lost their 12-year-old daughter, Kimberly, to a drunk driver.
The pain of that moment so long ago is still fresh, but the Shaffers have recently found some solace at a special site in Harrisburg: the DUI Victims Memorial Garden.
Located on Front Street and created by the Pennsylvania DUI Association in 2003, the garden's focal point is a walkway made of inscribed bricks.
The Shaffers, from Overlook, didn't learn about the garden until a mobile version came to Shamokin in 2009. They inquired about obtaining a brick for Kimberly, and by spring 2010, it was placed.
The brick reads: "Kimberly B. Shaffer, June 2, 1969. So young, so loved, so missed."
"We wrote the words on the brick for how much she means to us, and seeing it there, knowing it will be there when we are gone, gives you a feeling of peace," Georgetta Shaffer said Friday.
The Shaffers placed a memorial ad in The News-Item recognizing the 30th anniversary of their daughter's death.
July 2, 1981
On that summer evening, Kimberly was playing with two friends at a home along Mountain Road between Overlook and Bear Gap when a car operated by a drunk driver failed to negotiate a sharp curve. The car went over a 5-foot embankment and struck Shaffer and a playmate, John Kaskie, 9, also from Paxinos. The vehicle narrowly missed another boy.
The driver jumped from the car, attempted to flee and pulled a knife when confronted by a neighbor, but he didn't use it, and was taken into custody by Ralpho Township Police.
Kimberly was pronounced dead at what was then Shamokin State General Hospital. John died a few days later at Geisinger Medical Center, Danville.
The driver, from New Jersey, who had three local passengers with him, was charged with homicide by vehicle, driving under the influence of alcohol, fleeing an accident involving death or personal injury, simple assault, reckless driving and failure to drive at a safe speed.
Kimberly points way
While the DUI Victims Memorial Garden provides some relief to years of grief for the Shaffers, they hope others who haven't had to deal with such pain will be impacted, too.
When the Shaffers visited the garden for the first time, it was after the association had closed, so they were not sure where Kimberly's brick was among the more than 2,000 others.
"It took us about a minute; right as we started looking, we found it," Georgetta Shaffer said. "She was definitely pointing down at us that day."
On the Net: www.padui.org.