— The Indiana Attorney General’s Office made her stop.
As one of Lauren Richwine’s clients lay in bed, his stepdaughter wrote a note and slid it into the shirt pocket over his motionless chest. Friends from the local music scene cried at his side as they prepared to carry the former bassist out of his home, permanently.
Cancer killed the young father. Instead of being rushed away to prepare for burial, his family kept him at home for a day. He rested in a sunroom, Richwine said, where the people in his life grieved and his children climbed in and out of bed with his body.
Richwine runs Death Done Differently — a Fort Wayne company specializing in “community-led death care.” She does end-of-life planning and informs people about alternatives to conventional funerals.
“Some people (say), ‘Isn’t it going to be traumatizing to the children, or couldn’t it be traumatic to see or be with someone after they’ve died?’” Richwine told IndyStar. “And I think, in my experience, it’s the opposite. It’s traumatic when we remove them too fast because we haven’t had time for this to really sink in.”
But as of this week, her work is on hold. On Wednesday she launched a new lawsuit against Indiana after the state shut her business down.
Attorney general’s office says she needs funeral director license
Death Done Differently caught the attention of the Indiana Attorney General’s Office in 2021. Someone filed a complaint against Richwine with the office. The complaint didn’t allege she harmed or deceived anyone, according to a copy reviewed by IndyStar, but said she “may require a license from the state to provide funeral services.” It doesn’t say who complained.
After giving Richwine the chance to reply, the office asked the State Board of Funeral and Cemetery Service for a cease-and-desist order.
Death Done Differently “offers several services that constitute the practice of funeral service,” the office said. It points to services like discussing body disposition, helping with legal paperwork and “readings, music, conversation, healing touch, or general companionship with the dying individual.”
State law says the practice of funeral service includes “the counseling of individuals concerning methods and alternatives for the final disposition of human remains.”
The board agreed. It issued a cease-and-desist order against Richwine on Aug. 21.
Richwine says her work is protected by the First Amendment
Her lawsuit claims Indiana is restricting her free speech because her work is speaking with and educating clients. Richwine’s attorneys want a judge in federal Northern District of Indiana court to issue an injunction that would stop the state from denying her “ability to speak with adults regarding death care.”
“There are a lot of people who currently talk about funeral options, funeral care that are not funeral directors,” Richwine said.
She gave the example of pastors. Some have “healthy relationships” with funeral homes and can be a link between congregants and funeral providers.
“Are they going to now be not allowed? Where does this end if they don’t want you talking about any of the laws and any of the funeral code at all?”
IndyStar has asked the attorney general’s office for its response to the lawsuit.
Former client: ‘She was just there to facilitate’
Andrea Schwartz’s family called Richwine hours after her daughter, Nova, was stillborn. It happened five years ago.
She told IndyStar Richwine played a different role than the funeral home her family worked with.
“Our experience was she was just there to facilitate, give us information, show us what our choices were, support us through it,” Schwartz said. “But then as far as the actual funeral, all the procedures and everything were done through a funeral home with their own funeral director.”
Richwine gave “warm support and comfort.” It was like night and day compared with Schwartz’s past experiences with elderly deaths in the family.
“It was never a positive experience” working with corporate funeral homes, she said. It was cold and impersonal, “like you’re just a number to them.”
“Kind of feeling like you were at a car sales lot the whole time,” Schwartz said.
Lawsuit says traditional funerals ‘medicalize’ death
Richwine’s lawsuit says she advises people about options other than the “historically recent innovation” of “embalming the body, holding a ceremony in a funeral parlor, and cremation or burying in an expensive casket.”
That process “medicalizes death,” the suit claims. It points to home funerals as one alternative, adding that bodies don’t present health risks to those in their vicinity for at least three days “in ordinary circumstances.”
“There’s a weird dynamic at work, where we have been normalized to relate to someone when they die as … not really belonging to us anymore,” Richwine said. “That’s part of what my work comes out of, this very strong belief that they still belong to those loved ones and the relational ties that were created, those deserve to be honored and respected.”
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