LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — Alex Simpson was just 13 years old when she received the diagnosis.
CIC-DUX4 is a rare form of sarcoma that left her in a battle not once, but three times.
After beating it once at 13 and once at 14 at Kentucky Children's Hospital, Simpson was in remission for seven years. She traveled, cheered, performed, and made it to study French at Dartmouth University.
But in her senior year, the cancer came back. As her mother, Melanie Simpson, explains, Alex spent her final months wanting to truly live.
"Alex was big on quality of life. And she wanted to live. Not just be healed by medicine, but healed—her whole soul, the whole person," Melanie Simpson said.
Simpson stayed in school, even attending her college graduation the day after a stroke. That summer, she traveled all the way to Africa before she passed away on August 27, 2022.
Now, her love for living has found a permanent home at Kentucky Children's.
A summer project has brought Alex and the things she loved right to the hospital that once saved her, thanks to muralist Keaton Young.
The entire mural was a complete surprise to Melanie until she walked in on Monday.
"This mural is beautiful, it's colorful, it's happy and joyful, and has so many wonderful memories tied to it," Simpson said. "It took my breath away. I didn't know what to say."
The mural depicts Alex in the dress she wore on her high school graduation day, looking over a scene that includes the Eiffel Tower, a macaroon shop and the Coliseum.
It's located inside the Simpson Family Theater, a place where patients and their families can enjoy art, music, performances, and now a colorful escape from hospital rooms.
"I think she's kind of watching over these children who are in here now playing and finding an escape from their realities," Simpson said.
The theater opened originally before the pandemic, but now that visitors are welcome in the hospital again, it is taking on a new life.
Simpson and hospital officials are hoping the space brings a better quality of life to patients for years to come, exactly what Simpson said Alex would have wanted.
