Compassionate Death Doula · New York & Beyond
The Grief Warrior® · A Pioneer in Sacred End-of-Life Care
Most of my work is presence.
When MiMi walks into a room, the energy shifts. Not because of what she says. Not because of what she does. Simply because she has arrived — carrying a warmth so eminent, so unhurried, that the people in that room feel it before she ever speaks. She might hold you in silence. She might hold you in a hug. Both are the same thing coming from her hands.
This is not a skill she learned. It is something she has always been.
In 1998, at her grandmother’s bedside, MiMi made her first visit beyond the veil. Not as a bystander. Not as a grieving grandchild watching helplessly. She was present as a guide — actively transitioning her grandmother’s soul to the other side. She didn’t have language for it then. She didn’t need it. She only needed to know what her hands already knew, what her energy already understood. That was the beginning.
You don’t have to explain what you’re feeling when you call her. You don’t have to have the right words. MiMi has sat in enough of these rooms to know that words are often the last thing anyone needs.
For over two decades — long before “Death Doula” became a title the world recognized — MiMi has been doing this work. Quietly. Completely. Standing in the rooms that others cannot enter without flinching, and staying until there is nothing left to stay for. She has guided countless families through the final hours of a loved one’s life, and then through the grief that comes after. She knows both territories. She has lived in both.
In 2020, Canadian Hospice in Vancouver called on MiMi to guide a dementia patient through medical aid in dying. It is the kind of passage that demands everything — total presence, total rust, total surrender to what is happening in the room. She did not hesitate. She never does.
Because this is not what MiMi does for work. This is what MiMi is.
What Does a Death Doula Do?
✔ Devoted End-of-Life Advocacy
Hospice, palliative care, the sterile weight of bureaucracy—Michele steps in where the system falters, ensuring your loved one’s transition is met with dignity, autonomy, and absolute reverence.
✔ The Presence Others Shy Away From
This is not about easing fear. It is about facing it. Sitting in it. Transcending it. Through stillness, sound, and a rare attunement to what is both seen and unseen, Michele creates an atmosphere where peace is not an ideal, but an inevitability.
✔ Rituals & Ceremonies
Death, in its truest form, is art. Some passings require whispered prayers, others candlelight, others a sacred reckoning that demands something far older than language. Michele curates the departure that your loved one deserves.
✔ A Bridge Between the Living & the Departing
The body fades before the soul does. The mind lets go long before the energy does. There is a delicate, untamed space between the final breath and whatever comes after—and this is where Michele works. Ensuring nothing is rushed. Nothing is abandoned. Nothing is left unseen.
✔ Grief as Transformation
Loss does not end at death. It lingers, reshapes, reorders. Michele does not offer healing—she offers navigation through the wreckage, guiding those left behind toward a new understanding of what it means to continue.
Why Families Trust Michele
✔ She Does Not Look Away
Where others flinch, she leans in. She is not fragile in the face of death; she is resolute.
✔ She Exists Outside of Systems
This is not institutionalized end-of-life care. This is something older, something untamed, something that does not require permission.
✔ She Leaves No Stone Unturned
From the first whisper of decline to the silence that follows the last breath, Michele is there. Entirely. Unapologetically. Unwaveringly.
Begin Your Journey with Michele
If you have found yourself here, it is not by accident.
You are searching for something that cannot be learned, something that cannot be softened into the language of the ordinary. You are looking for a guide—not of procedure, but of passage.
“There is profound beauty in bearing witness to another’s truth. In the silence, in the spaces between words, we find the essence of what it means to love and to live fully—even as we let go.”
— Michele C. Bell
Contact Michele today to explore how she can support your family through this sacred and transformative passage.
She is a true healer of the injured human soul. I am thankful for her every day.
