When Alex Simpson came into the world, her parents believed they had welcomed a healthy newborn. But two months later, a routine check-up shattered everything they thought they knew. Doctors discovered that Alex had hydranencephaly — a rare condition that left her with only a pinky’s worth of brain matter at the base of her skull. They told her parents, Shawn and Lorena, to prepare for the unimaginable: Alex would not live to see her fourth birthday.
Yet this November, surrounded by balloons, laughter, and decades of love, Alex turned 20.
“Twenty years ago we were scared, but faith, I think, is really what kept us alive,” her father, Shawn, said. That faith carried them through sleepless nights, medical uncertainty, and years of hearing what Alex would never do. But their daughter has written her own story — one defined not by limitation, but by an unexplainable presence that continues to astonish everyone who meets her.
Though Alex lacks the parts of the brain responsible for sight and hearing, her family insists she possesses an extraordinary sensitivity to the world around her. Her 14-year-old brother, SJ, says she can sense emotions in a way that defies medical logic. “Say somebody’s stressed around her. Nothing will even happen — it could be completely silent — but Alex will know. She’ll feel something,” he shared. “If my grandma’s hurting, in her back, she’ll radiate off of it. It’s crazy.”
Determined to understand her condition, SJ has spent years researching hydranencephaly so he can better support his sister. He calls being her brother one of the greatest honors of his life.
To the Simpsons, Alex is not defined by what she is missing, but by the impact she makes simply by existing. Her quiet strength, her sensitivity, her ability to unite her family — these, they say, are miracles in their purest form.
Against every prediction, Alex’s life has become a testament to resilience, parental devotion, and the mysterious depth of human connection. And as she celebrates her 20th birthday, her family believes more firmly than ever that she continues to feel, understand, and touch hearts in ways science still cannot explain.
“She’s our miracle,” they say — and twenty years later, she continues to prove it every single day.