Her Story
Alicia Shaffer
December 1989 – January 2026
Wife. Best friend. The brightest light in every room, and the reason this foundation exists.
Who She Was
A life lived in full color
Alicia never did anything halfway. She dressed up for the ordinary days, laughed the loudest at the table, and turned every trip into an occasion, whether it was the beach, the vineyard, or a random Tuesday dinner. She loved fiercely and was loved right back.
For fourteen years she was the center of Jason's world: his wife, his travel partner, his best friend. Together they built a life full of adventures, inside jokes, sunsets, hockey nights, and one very spoiled corgi.
She was 36 years old. Healthy, by every account: no medical history, no warning shots across the bow. What happened to Alicia can happen to anyone. That's exactly why her story matters.
Fourteen Years
From first date to forever
Jason and Alicia's story spanned fourteen years, from the early days when they were just two kids figuring it out, to a Lancaster wedding, to a marriage that made everyone around them believe in the real thing.
They traveled every coast they could reach. They celebrated everything. They were, in the truest sense, partners. That's why this foundation carries both of their hearts: hers in every photograph, his in every word.
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Where it began -
The wedding by the water -
October 2025, weeks before everything changed
The Eight Weeks
The symptoms were there. The answer wasn't.
In the fall of 2025, Alicia started feeling dizzy. Not spinning, not fainting. Just off. Off balance. Like the floor had a slight tilt only she could feel.
For eight weeks it stayed light, gradually getting worse. Then, in the final days, it brought company:
Alicia wasn't careless. She was busy living. And like so many people, she reached for the ordinary explanations first: tired, stressed, run down, maybe an inner-ear thing. Anything and everything except a brain tumor. She never believed it could be that. She never took the symptoms seriously, because no one ever told her they could be serious.
A light dizziness that keeps getting worse was easy to explain away. But when the rest arrived on top of it, together they were a pattern: the exact pattern that deserves a brain scan. Nobody connected the dots until December 28.
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Early November 2025
The dizziness begins: light, a faint off-balance feeling that comes and goes, then stops going away. Week by week it gradually gets worse, but it stays easy to explain away.
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The final two weeks
Headaches arrive in the last week or two. Then, days before the ER, the rest comes all at once: double vision, nausea, trouble grabbing and holding things, walls she couldn't stop bumping into. The dizziness is no longer light.
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December 28, 2025
The dizziness becomes impossible to ignore, and Alicia goes to the emergency room. A scan finally looks at her brain and finds two tumors, blocking the natural flow of fluid and putting pressure on everything around them. She is transferred immediately to a neurosurgical ICU.
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December 29 – January 5
Surgeons and an ICU team fight for her for nine days, through two operations and complication after complication. Alicia fights hardest of all. It isn't enough. The tumors had simply been found too late.
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January 6, 2026
With Jason at her side, as he had been through all of it, Alicia passes away peacefully in the first minutes of the day. She was 36.
What Her Story Asks of You
Don't explain it away. If symptoms stack up and stick around, ask for a scan.
Dizziness, balance problems, recurring headaches, vision changes, nausea, clumsiness. Alone, each is probably nothing. Together and worsening, they deserve a real answer. Only imaging can give one.
She was incredible, the love of my life. Every part of this foundation is for her, and for the person out there right now feeling dizzy, tired, “off”, and telling themselves it's nothing. Please. Get it checked. Jason Shaffer
In loving memory of Alicia Shaffer, 1989 – 2026.
Forever 36. Forever loved. Forever saving lives.