Maya Rose Thompson was born on May 9, 2017, in Denver, Colorado, to Marcus and Jennifer Thompson. She arrived in the spring, which suited her perfectly — she was the kind of person who made things bloom. From her earliest months, Maya had a quality that is hard to name but impossible to miss: a warmth, a presence, a way of making the people around her feel seen and loved. Maya loved flowers — she could name more varieties than most adults — and spent hours in the backyard garden with her grandmother, learning the names of things and how to care for them. She loved painting, particularly with watercolors, and covered the refrigerator and then the walls of her room with her work. She loved music, dancing, her cat Cinnamon, and her cousins, who she treated as her best friends in the world. She was nine years old and in third grade at Slavens K-8 School, where her teacher described her as a child of exceptional empathy — the first to notice when a classmate was upset, the first to offer comfort, the first to share. She was learning to read chapter books and had recently declared that she wanted to be a botanist when she grew up, because "plants are alive and they need someone to pay attention to them." Maya Rose Thompson left this world on July 21, 2026, after a brief and unexpected illness. She was nine years old. She paid attention to everything. She loved everything she paid attention to. The garden she tended will bloom again in the spring, and we will think of her every time it does.

Hobbies & interests

Tending the backyard garden with her grandmother; painting with watercolors; identifying and naming flowers and plants; dancing to music in the living room; caring for her cat Cinnamon; visiting the Denver Botanic Gardens; painting rocks and leaving them for neighbors to find

Survived by

Her parents, Marcus and Jennifer Thompson of Denver, CO; her brother, Elijah Marcus Thompson, age 6; her grandparents, Robert and Carol Thompson of Boulder, CO, and William and Patricia Nguyen of Aurora, CO; her aunts, uncles, and cousins who loved her dearly; and her teacher, Mrs. Alvarado, and her classmates at Slavens School.

Preceded in death by

Her great-grandmother, Rose Marie Nguyen, for whom she was named.