OBITUARY: Shelli Dimarco

Shelli Dimarco, nee Michelle Brown, ‘Shelli,’ age 56, departed from us while at home on May 24, 2025 after a valiant four year battle with cancer. She was much loved and will be greatly missed by all who knew her.

Shelli graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with High Honors in 1995, and graduated from Hume Fogg High School in 1987. She was a long time resident of Nashville, Tennessee after returning here from California. Per her wishes, there will not be a memorial service. Correspondingly, it was her wish to be cremated, and her ashes scattered in the crystal-clear waters of Silver Glen Springs, Florida, where her spirit was forever transformed while swimming with the Manatees on Christmas Eve of 2023.

Shelli was born in Clovis, New Mexico on December 8th, 1968, and was a survivor of childhood cancer. She participated in many organizations while growing up in Nashville, including ‘By and For’ as well as ‘Plays for Living’. She was also a member of the Pull Tight Theatre Players based in Franklin, Tennessee, for a short time. She loved hiking, camping, and nature. She was a passionate advocate and lover of all animals, especially cats and cows from a young age, and ultimately chose to become a vegetarian. Shelli was a champion for the causes of the weak, downtrodden, mistreated, and those unable to defend themselves from harm, and as a way of life selflessly placed these causes and people before her own interests. She thought Joe Montana of the San Francisco 49ers was simply the “Bees Knees!” Shelli was an avid reader and Harry Potter fan. She loved Guns and Roses, and spent many enjoyable hours making jewelry and working Legos. She was a long time employee of Holland and Knight, (formerly Waller Lansden) and to a very great extent was able to continue working due to the thoughtful accommodations made available to her from the company throughout her illness and treatments.

As a result of her departure from this world, she will be sorely missed and yearned for by those to whom she was closest, both by blood and vocation, as well as her steadfast soulmates in the form of her cats, Max and Emmy. Her mantra was always “Do No Harm”. If only there were more like her walking the earth, what an unabatedly and exceedingly wonderful world could be sustained as a result here on our blue planet. In this regard, she most assuredly has left her mark of positive influence upon us all.

Shelli is survived by her mother, Mona Frances Hanna Brown, to whom she was most devoted and who ardently sustained and supported Shelli not only from the malady onset, but throughout her entire life; her sole sibling, Lynli Brown Vincion (William Philip ‘Phil’ Vincion) of Crescent City, Florida, who tirelessly and selflessly cared for her during the final weeks of her life; niece Savannah Caitlyn Vincion (Kendrick Sparks) of Nashville, Tennessee, and nephew Phillip Elliott Vincion, Eugene, Oregon.

Shelli was preceded in death by her father, Dennis Miles Brown, a resident of Nashville, Tennessee, at the time of his passing.

Memorials may be sent in her honor to the Nashville Humane Association, or Walden’s Puddle Animal Rescue, Joelton, Tennessee. Please feel free, per Shelli’s wishes to play the Guns and Roses’ song “Sweet Child of Mine” in her honor as a tribute to her passing!