Journey with Joy End of Life Educator/Death Doula/Grief Advocate

100 yrs ago this wasnt a thing! Capitalism driven of a very personal thing!

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After nearly five years, a major victory for death education and the right to talk openly about death.

Back in 2021, Indiana death doula Lauren Richwine of Death Done Differently received a complaint from within the funeral industry for the supposed crime of discussing end-of-life options without a funeral director's license. The funeral industry demanded she stop providing information about death, dying, funerals, grief, and advance planning unless she became a licensed funeral director and embalmer.

Last week a federal court said—absolutely not.

The court permanently barred Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin from requiring death doulas to obtain funeral industry licenses simply to educate and support people navigating end-of-life decisions. The ruling makes it clear that providing information, advocacy, and support is a protected right, not the exclusive domain of the funeral industry.

This victory is about who gets to participate in conversations about death, and we’re so grateful to Lauren and the team at IFJ. For too long, parts of the funeral industry have attempted to gatekeep information that belongs to all of us. People deserve access to death education, community support, and the full range of end-of-life options without barriers. Death literacy is a right.

Read more about the case and the fight to defend your right to a good death in the links below.

How the Funeral Industry is Trying to Limit Free Speech by Targeting Death Doulas https://www.orderofthegooddeath.com/article/how-the-funeral-industry-is-trying-to-limit-free-speech-by-targeting-death-doulas/

Defending Your Right to a Good Death Death https://www.orderofthegooddeath.com/article/defending-your-right-to-a-good-death/

The Doulas Taking on California's Cemetery and Funeral Bureau (Podcast episode) https://deathintheafternoon.libsyn.com/interview-the-doulas-taking-on-californias-cemetery-and-funeral-bureau

Sitting outside against a tree enjoying the progression of sunset! Grateful!

https://www.waxwingjourneys.com/services

Services — Waxwing Journeys Fatherless Day 2026 On Sunday, June 21st please join Erica Reid Gerdes (she/her) and birth/ death doula Jourdan Sales (they/them) for a Share and Support zoom call for folks who have lost their fathers/father figures or have complicated relationships with them, whatever that means for you.The call w...

https://sleeping-village.com/event/chicago-end-of-life-expo/

Chicago End-Of-Life Expo Spacious, bi-level bar with ample draft beer & cider plus coffee in the AM, live music in the PM.

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☘️ Only the Irish looked at death and decided the appropriate response was to throw a party. The Irish wake isn't a failure to grieve properly. It's a sophisticated cultural technology for processing loss that the rest of the world is only beginning to understand. You gather everyone who loved the person, you put them in a room together, you tell every story you can remember about the deceased, and you laugh until you cry and cry until you laugh and by morning something has shifted that couldn't have shifted any other way.

The tradition goes back centuries, rooted in a pre-Christian Irish relationship with death that treated the transition between worlds as something to be marked with ceremony, music, storytelling, and community. The body was never left alone. The family was never left alone. The community showed up and stayed, not out of obligation but out of a genuine understanding that grief shared is grief made survivable. That wisdom crossed every ocean the Irish crossed and showed up in Irish-American communities where wakes became legendary for exactly the same reasons.

What gets missed in the outside perception of the Irish wake is the profound respect underneath the laughter. The stories being told aren't trivializing the person who died. They're refusing to let that person be reduced to their absence. Every laugh in that room is an act of love. Drop a comment if your family still does it this way and follow The Irish Remembered for more. 🕯️☘️

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