Madeline Cassandra Stensrud ("Maddie")
3 Jan 2026
Erie, Colorado (USA)
Suicide
Maddie died by suicide in her home.
My love, my life, Madeline Cassandra Stensrud passed away in our home, in Erie, Colorado, on January 30th, 2026. Nothing can describe the impact her loss has had on myself, our son, family, and friends. It is inconceivable to believe the person I’ve spent the last 8 years knowing and loving has vanished from this plane of existence. It is not fair that the world continues to turn without her on it.
Growing up, Maddie was described by her parents as a happy child, and was the darling of all of her teachers in school. She loved to read, collecting quite the library over the years. Maddie spent her childhood in Golden, Colorado, living with her parents, Don and Susan, her brother, Will, and her dog, Riley.
She attended from Fairview High School where she met friends who reminded connected with her the rest of her life, who were affectionately known in our circles as “Maddie’s Boys”. She graduated in 2016 before attending CU Boulder for a couple years, studying engineering. She returned to CU in 2025 to pursue a bio chemistry degree.
Maddie and I met in 2017, at a crepes shop on the 16th street mall. We bonded immediately over Maddie’s favorite author at the time, Brandon Sanderson, and very early on we knew we were going to be in each other’s lives for a long time. I proposed to Maddie at the renaissance fair, with a sword engraved “Marry Me”. Maddie was always a gal who loved swords.
In August of 2018 we welcomed our son, Elliot, into the world, just down the street from the hospital Maddie had been born in. She was the perfect support person for someone going through an unmedicated labor, letting me and my body do whatever I needed without judgement. She cried with me when things got to be too much, and I could see how much she hated seeing me in pain.
Maddie was always a loving and devoted mother to Elliot, passing along her love of reading and science, taking him to museums and cultivating his wonder for the world. She even adapted DND into a more child friendly version so she could share that with her son. Maddie and I officially married on October 22, 2022, after postponing it from October 10, 2020 for pandemic reasons. I will always hold the day we got married in my heart and soul, forever cherishing the vows she had written out for me. We walked down the aisle to an instrumental song from Maddie’s favorite movie, the Princess Bride. That day will always be perfect in my mind. No one could have ruined our joy.
Maddie always had a beautiful and creative mind, and one of her favorite activities was playing DND with friends, or attempting to start DND campaigns and them inevitably falling apart, usually due to a break up. But she never kept trying to find the DND group of her dreams, retooling and updating the campaign she had worked so hard to build. Near the end of her life she had a successful run with a group of former coworkers, letting her tell her story as intended. Maddie is an incredible world builder and puts so much time and thought into everything she creates. She’s so good, in fact, she’d earned the cursed title of “Forever DM”, because anyone who knew her wouldn’t possibly want anyone else at the head of the table, pulling the strings.
Maddie also loved photography, finding and capturing beauty in the smallest of things. She also liked taking selfies on people’s phones when they weren’t looking, leaving little traces of her wherever she went. You could always count on Maddie to tell a good story or craft an amazing joke. Jokes I have heard a million times because she always made sure to test her material out on me before sending it out into the world.
There’s so many things I could say about her, how do you sum up the life of a person in just a few paragraphs? Her favorite color was Royal Blue, her favorite bird was a Shrike, her favorite board game was Settlers of Catan, her favorite video game was Skyrim, her favorite food was a well cooked steak. And by “well” I actually mean pretty rare.
All of these little things made up the person that was Maddie. She always went out of her way to make the people she loved smile. She was an artist, a prankster, a gamer, the most wonderful person someone could ever meet. The world is a little darker without her in it, the stars won’t shine nearly as bright. Maddie is survived by myself, her son, her parents, and her best friend Cat, who will be sure to carry on her legacy and memory.
Rest well my love, and wherever you are, it is my deepest hope that you are no longer in pain.
Source: email
