“Death is not a medical event. It’s a life event, and it deserves to be treated like one.”
Michael has been walking alongside the dying since the AIDS crisis in San Francisco. He has sat bedside as a friend, a son, and a doula. He is committed to one thing: that no one dies alone, and no family is left without a guide.
Michael Hawley
Death Doula
End-of-Life Guide
Circle of Care
Practitioner
My message
“I’ve never felt more alive than when I’m supporting someone at that point in their life.”
Michael Hawley has been with the dying since before there was a name for what he did. In San Francisco in the 1980s, at the height of the AIDS crisis, he cared for friend after friend in their final weeks. With his grief, he also found a calling.
Before turning to end-of-life work, he spent years in corporate leadership, managing large teams and learning to meet people where they are and hold them through difficulty. Those skills became the backbone of everything that followed. He cared for his mother through dementia and sat with his friend Nancy through metastatic cancer. The most important measure to him was the quality of life in those final weeks. It still is.
Today he hosts monthly Death Café conversations and works with families navigating terminal illness and dementia, so that no one faces the end alone.
The people who find their way to Michael
Dementia & Alzheimer’s families
Families navigating Alzheimer’s, Lewy body, Parkinson’s, or unspecified dementia, watching a loved one change before their eyes. Michael helps them find the person still present, and hold the one who is becoming someone new.
The dying & their families
People facing a terminal diagnosis who want more than hospice protocol, who want a guide that unites the patient, the family, and the medical team into one coherent, human circle of care.
Families who don’t know how to be present
Those who love the dying person deeply but feel lost in the room. Michael is the bridge between grief and presence, helping families show up with meaning rather than manage from a distance.
Those planning ahead
People who want to complete advance care planning before a crisis forces the conversation, understanding that this is an act of love for the people they will one day leave behind.
Caregivers at the edge
The people who held everyone else through the dying process and were never held themselves. Michael knows this territory from the inside. He holds space for the ones who gave everything.
Legacy & meaning seekers
Those who want their final chapter to leave something behind: a story, a ritual, or any celebration of life that reflects who they actually were.
Right for you if…
If any of these are true, you’re in the right place.
- You are caring for a parent or loved one with dementia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or Lewy body
- You or someone you love is facing a terminal illness and you don’t want to go through it alone
- You want to complete advance care planning before a crisis makes the conversation impossible
- You’re carrying the weight of being the primary caregiver
- You want help planning a legacy project, a celebration of life, or a final goodbye that actually honours the person
How I work
Michael works as a holistic member of the care team, uniting the patient, family, and medical team through every stage, from advance care planning through vigil and grief support after.
You don’t have to carry it alone.
Otherside Life coordinates; care is provided by the practitioner.