40 Years Ago Today
March 6, 1986 to March 6, 2026
It's been 40 years since that goodbye at the Children's Hospital in Denver, Colorado. I would say it seems like ages ago since we walked in to that NICU of the hospital and given the news that they found yet again, something else wrong with our little girl. But then, sometimes it feels like just yesterday. The feelings start anew and I am often surprised when they come upon me.
Our little Alexis Donielle Dover was born on February 8, 1986. Our firstborn, she came on schedule and what we thought as completely healthy. We took her home a couple of days later and began to be a family of three instead of two. Oh how she made us smile. We just couldn't stop looking at her!
Imagine our world when we had a sick baby who needed to go to the emergency room on March 2nd! After many tests and "we need to get her to Children's Hospital right away," comments, our little precious baby was airlifted across the city on a dark and cold Sunday night.
God, in His goodness, provided the amazing medical team at Children's who knew immediately what our daughter's symptoms indicated and immediately began treatment. Even the best medicine and care in the world doesn't always mean healing this side of heaven. The morning of the 6th of March took us by surprise when we entered the NICU with "let's go find somewhere to talk about your baby." By midafternoon we were gathered in her little NICU room, holding her for the first time since earlier Sunday, wrapped in the softest blanket. It was time to let her go. It was as if I was standing on the outside looking in, not able to grasp that this was real. She passed so quickly and and so quietly.
Walking back to our car after all arrangements were made seemed like an eternity. Seeing the smiling faces of little kids on the posters lining the wall did not bring me joy. I was sad!
We got through a funeral, a burial, and trying to start a life from a family of three back down to a family of two. Was it hard? Most certainly. Did the grief linger? Sometimes. But oftentimes I would find where we could just be "normal" and do the things that needed doing. Was it hard to talk about? I think we just held our feelings and experience close to our hearts. We were still trying to figure out who we were now: Were we really still parents?
But God. In His infinite mercy and love for us gave us the opportunity to go on and have four more children. We are a family of 2 adults and 5 children, but most know us as a family of 6. We didn't share our entire story but with only those we felt close to. It took years before we felt the desire and willingness to talk to others who were experiencing loss of their own. God graciously connected us with exactly who needed to talk to us.
Eventually I was drawn to the Sarah's Laughter ministry, started by a woman and her husband who struggled with infertiltiy for many years. Their meetings and materials extended to women who had also experienced loss, whether it be through miscarriage, stillbirth, or like me, through infant death.
Later, I connected with a ministry called SOAR at our current church. It is specifically targeted towards women in all phases of loss, infertility, grief, and more. As a leader I am drawn to women of all ages and stages who are struggling and feel that no one else truly understands; but yet, we do! Oh how we do!
So where does that leave us these 40 years since the death of our precious Alexis? We are empty nesters, now grandparents, loving life, getting to travel, enjoy friends, family and so much more. We now have a cabin in the little town were our daughter is buried. We had decide to bury her next to her paternal grandparents' plots to "keep it family." And now, on our many visits to the cabin, we can go visit her burial site, take flowers, just think of her, cry for the "what ifs" and even just smile. God has healed our hearts and now, and when we see her little burial marker, I can just thank God for the blessings He has given us through the years.
Alexis' death has taught us so much. God's healing and encouragement. Doors opening up to experience new things, opportunities to minister to other couples going through their own grief, as well as the ability to love our children and now grandchildren well.
I was always drawn to this particular set of verses as I tried to make sense of the "why" of losing our daughter:
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. 6 If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. 7 And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
Thinking about the reunion in heaven we will have someday with our Alexis makes me happy, but yet, knowing that my Lord and Savior is there is what really matters. My eyes and heart will be open to the entire will of our God and everything we grieved for here on earth will make entire sense, or just not matter anymore.
Here is my letter to my precious baby daughter this day, the day she would have left this world 40 years ago:
Dear Alexis,
It’s been many years since I first held you in my heart and even in my arms, and yet you have never been far from me. Time has passed in ways I never imagined back then, but my love for you has never aged, never faded.
I often wonder who you might have been—what your laugh would have sounded like, what things you would have loved, how your life might have unfolded. Those questions still visit me, but today I bring them with tenderness instead of sorrow.
You mattered. You still matter. Your life, though brief, changed mine forever. You taught me how deep love can run, even in the shortest moments. You taught me that a mother’s heart stretches beyond what it thinks it can hold.
I want you to know that I’ve carried you with me through every season—through joy, through loss, through becoming who I am today. When I smile, when I’m quiet, when I’m strong, you are part of that story.
I hope you are at peace, surrounded by love more perfect than I can imagine. I hope you know how cherished you are and always will be. Until the day we meet again, live gently in my heart, Alexis.
With all my love,
Your Momma
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