ABOUT ME
Erin Merelli
Death Doula | Educator | Ceremonialist | Public Speaker
My name is Erin Merelli, and I walk alongside death—not to fear it, but to honor it. As a death doula, educator, and public speaker, I guide individuals, families, and communities to meet mortality with intention, courage, and love. My message is simple but not easy: We are all going to die, and to manage that well, we need to talk about it.
From my home base in Colorado, I’ve been meandering across the country—and beyond—offering education, ceremony, and care to expand our collective narrative around death and dying.
“The work of death is the work of love. To sit at the edge of life is to hold everything tender and true, all at once.”
Check Erin’s Services & Courses
The Work
I am the co-founder of Deathwives, a training community dedicated to providing accessible death education for families and professionals. More recently, I founded Death Ed with Erin, where I take the work on the road and guide students through next-level sojourns of the soul.
My teaching and care invite us to consider mortality in individual, communal, and environmental contexts, exploring:
The autonomy of death and dying.
The expression of grief, and why that matters.
Functional, hands-on deathwork.
Burial practices, both conventional and green.
The diversity of deathcare across cultures and history.
Through my cornerstone program, Deathschool and a few others, I’ve had the distinct honor of training over 1,000 death doulas in the last 6 years.
It is an immense privilege to have such meaningful work myself, and to teach others to have their own version of the same thing.
Testimonials
Reaching the Mainstream
It has been my great joy to see this movement take root in the mainstream. From the start, one of my pillars of intention with this work is to expand the narrative around death and dying. Studies show that 10/10 of us will die. We really do need to discuss it, friends.
My voice and work have been featured on TEDxMileHigh, PBS, Forbes, Comedy Central, and in numerous publications and podcasts. Through these platforms, I’ve been able to share a message that resonates deeply: Our dead belong to us, and the care we give them matters.
I remain grateful for the reception of this work—and the ways it continues to ripple outward.
Spotted on:
The Path That Led Me Here
Before stepping fully into modern deathcare, I found myself drawn to other sacred transitions—birth and marriage. In 2010, I became certified as a birth doula, and it was an AHA moment. Now this was the right direction. Being present for life’s first breaths was profound, but what it revealed to me was even deeper: I was being called to walk alongside the other threshold, the one we all eventually face.
While learning the skills and building my deathwork practice, I worked as a wedding planner and celebrant, organizing and officiating over 100 weddings. When people used to ask me what I did for a living, I would always say:
“I marry ‘em and I bury ‘em!”
Yes, it makes a bit of a gimmick out of something sacred and personal—but laughter is sacred, too.
In those early days, I was also earning my degrees in Music and Business at the University of Colorado, while juggling the beautiful chaos of motherhood and work as a nurse’s aide. Along the way, I earned certifications in both birth doulaship and death doulaship, each step pulling me closer to my true calling.
The themes woven throughout my life have always centered on great transitions—the entry and exit of the soul, the wondering why, the ceremony they seek, and the way we alchemize ourselves through it all.
Each moment—whether in birth, at the altar or the bedside —has been part of the same story: a practice in honoring the profound mysteries of what it means to be alive. A practice in honoring love.
Check Erin’s Services & Courses
QUESTIONS? LET’S CHAT.
HAVE QUESTIONS OR JUST WANT TO CHAT? BOOK A CONSULTATION WITH ME.
Personal Loss
This work is not something I stumbled upon—it called me. As a young person, I endured profound personal loss, beginning when my first love died in a car accident during high school. That loss cracked open a lifelong desire to reach for the other side of the sky.
And like so many, I am not immune to grief. In 2022, I lost my sister to suicide, a heartbreak that I will forever be soothing. These experiences deepen my understanding of deathwork and anchor me in the belief that grief is a shared human experience—and none of us have to carry it alone. I am equipped with the personal and the professional experience to walk alongside you until the end.
Beyond the Work
When I’m not teaching or tending to others, you’ll find me feeding my soul where I feel most alive: among the mountains and oceans. I live in Colorado but spend considerable, satisfying time in the Caribbean, where the turquoise waters and the wise souls ground and inspire me.
I’m also the mother of two nearly-grown children, who remind me every day of the beauty and challenge of loving deeply and letting go gently.
Learn about our services
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Funeral Planning and Officiation: It is my greatest honor to craft funeral services and memorials that honor the dead and provide a supportive space to grieve for the living. I can help wirite obituaries and services, emcee ceremonies, as well as offer full scale funeral planning for all sizes of memorial services. Together, we’ll create a service that brings healing and meaning to those gathered.
