Ally Eden
January 35, 1988 - September 5, 2026
Ally Eden was a poet, interpreter, artist, community builder, nature lover, and fiercely curious human being whose radiant joy lit up the lives of everyone around her. She moved through the world with an extraordinary attentiveness—to people, to language, to beauty, to injustice, and to the small, poignant moments that make a life meaningful. Through her poetry, her work, her art, and the way she loved people, Ally spent her life fostering connection, creating space for others, and deeply appreciating the beauty of being alive.
More than anything, Ally loved people. She was a tremendously beloved wife, daughter, sister, friend, colleague, and community member, and she had an extraordinary capacity to make the people around her feel seen, understood, and valued. She was endlessly curious about other people—their stories, their ideas, their experiences, the things that made them laugh, and the things that broke their hearts. She paid attention to who was present, who was missing, and who might need a little more encouragement to feel belonging. For Ally, connection was never an abstract idea. It was something she practiced every day, through generosity, curiosity, humor, creativity, and love.
Ally was a communicator in the deepest sense of the word. As a poet, interpreter, and friend, she understood that words could do much more than convey information: they could make people feel seen, invite difficult conversations, create understanding, and foster belonging. Her work with language required precision and skill, but it also required deep emotional intelligence and empathy. To borrow a line of her poetry, she loved the power that resided in language, “to bridge the gap of distance without losing sight of that which makes us different.”
Ally was born in Pasadena, California, on January 25, 1988, to Rick and Carla Eden. After moving to Grand Junction as a small child, her early years were replete with an unflinching belief in magic and fairies, often playing with trolls by the creek while her mother fished nearby their campsite. In later summers spent with her father, she loved piling into an Astrovan with her six siblings on the way to the beach, a museum, a bookstore, or a cultural event in Los Angeles.
As a high schooler, Ally discovered the fiery, rebellious side of herself. A National Merit Scholar, Ally had a mind that was both rigorous and wonderfully unconventional. She was known to get into trouble for skipping class, but rarely without having devised a clever way of doing so. She had a lifelong instinct to question rules—not simply because they were rules, but because she believed every rule deserved to be examined through a lens of personal values and for whether it actually served a good purpose.
In college, music became a central and essential thread that tethered Ally socially and opened doors to what became an immensely creative and supportive community of friends for the rest of her life.
Ally graduated with honors after designing her own degree in Environmental Communication and spent summers doing fieldwork and leading environmental education programs for youth. During a study-abroad program in Costa Rica, Ally became enamored with travel—not for the sheen of tourism, but for the opportunity to learn a new way of life, to learn values that differed from her own and inspired her to change and evolve, to inquire, to love boundlessly, to learn Spanish, and to lust after the seemingly impossible creations of nature. Ally would travel extensively for the rest of her life, making lifelong friends all over the globe.
Ally spent an extremely formative chapter of her life serving in the Peace Corps after college, from 2011 to 2013. In a small, rural village in Panama called Quebrada el Ciprián, she worked with families and schools on organic gardens and fuel-efficient stoves, helped women in the community develop a bread-baking business, taught environmental education and leadership to young people, and aided with work on women's health, domestic violence, and advocacy. It was in Panama that she became fully bilingual and learned the deep importance of being in community.
She returned to Colorado and worked for La Familia as a Bilingual Health Advocate before becoming a Health Equity Specialist with UCHealth. In 2016, she founded Language Justice Matters, establishing a career as a freelance interpreter and translator specializing in conversations around health, education, culture, race and equity, public affairs, and the environment. One of the great joys of Ally’s life was discovering the power that resides in language and continually learning from her work.
Her work was only one expression of an extraordinary creative life. Ally was a photographer, writer, poet, installation artist, gardener, and enthusiastic curator of parties. She photographed nature, musicians, and performers, wrote essays about her travels simply because she enjoyed writing them, and created immersive art installations and creative gatherings for her friends.
Around 2016, she became deeply involved in the Colorado SLAM poetry and spoken-word community, performing as Gato Hato. She was a regular at Wolverine Farm and later co-founded the Gulo Gulo Poetry Collective. She was honored to serve as Fort Collins Poet Laureate from 2022 to 2024. During that time, she created free poetry workshops in English and Spanish throughout Northern Colorado with her unique gift for making people feel safe enough to experiment, play, and discover the power in their own voices. She understood poetry not as something that belonged behind a podium or on a page, but as something alive—something that could empower, bring people together, and create meaning. In August 2026, Ally published her first book of poetry, Bone Stacked Oak, a dream she had carried for more than a decade.
In 2021, after a decade-long friendship, Ally’s relationship with the great love of her life, Alysia, took full bloom. In the years that followed, they traveled the world together in adventure and curiosity, enjoyed passionate and deep creative collaboration, and shared a life rich in community and laughter. On a perfect summer day in 2024, they married, surrounded and celebrated by those whose lives were touched by the beautiful silver threads of their love. Ally and Alysia’s love is lifetimes and continues to inspire others to love fully and with abandon.
Ally is also a deeply loved daughter, family member, friend, colleague, and creative companion. Those who knew Ally will remember her luminous kindness and robust laughter, her love of dancing, and the care and compassion she gave endlessly to those she loved. Ally's life was an act of attention: to language, to people, to beauty, to injustice, to love, and to the tenderness and brutality of being alive.
On September 5, 2026, at the age of 38, Ally took her last breaths on this earth, surrounded by love, after a nearly year-long battle with cancer. She leaves behind her wife, Alysia Kraft; her mother, Carla Eden (spouse, David Rees); father, Rick Eden (spouse, Mar Hollingsworth); siblings Erica Gillenwater (spouse, Paul Gillenwater; children Grey and Evy Gillenwater), Blake Eden (spouse, Anne Eden; children Billy and Danny Eden), Elana Eden (partner, Frank Luna), Zehara Eden, and Klil Eden (significant other, Clara Houghteling); Stephen Hollingsworth (son of Mar Hollingsworth); Amy Rees (daughter of David Rees); and Matt Rees (son of David Rees; spouse, Liz Rees; children Amelia and Nathan Rees), as well as countless friends, colleagues, artists, readers, interpreters, and community members whose lives were changed simply by having known her.
Her love and energy will live on eternally through all she impacted throughout her beautiful life.
Donations in Ally’s Honor
All donations made to Ally & Alysia’s GoFundMe after October 1 will be distributed among Northern Colorado immigrant rights and advocacy organizations that were deeply meaningful to Ally and to which she devoted her work, care, and service as an interpreter.
Ally’s Celebration of Life
Saturday, October 10th, 2026
11:00 AM
Foothills Unitarian Church
1815 Yorktown Ave
Fort Collins, CO 80526
We will be holding a memorial for Ally Eden at Foothills Unitarian on Saturday, October 10th at 11:00am. The service will be immediately followed by a reception with food, drink, music and a few of Ally's favorite activities.
You can also join the service live via Zoom at:
https://zoom.us/j/95776753929#success
Detalles
Celebraremos un servicio conmemorativo para Ally Eden en Foothills Unitarian el sábado 10 de octubre a las 11:00 a.m. Los invitamos a visitar la página de servicios conmemorativos en el sitio web de Foothills para conocer todos los próximos eventos: foothillsuu.org/memorials.
Los invitamos a compartir un recuerdo de su tiempo con Ally, o palabras de condolencia para Alysia, esposa de Ally, y sus seres queridos, a través de este enlace. Estas historias serán recopiladas y compartidas con la familia, ofreciendo un pequeño consuelo durante este tiempo de duelo.
También pueden unirse al servicio en vivo por Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/95776753929#success