Author and Celebrant Kelly Meloche Documents The Extraordinary Lives of Those We’ve Loved And Lost
Story by Alley L. Biniarz
Photography by Frank Michael Photography
We’re all born with stories. These may include the ones our parents tell us or the ones that shape who we are; then we add them to our own histories. These are the stories we leave behind when we pass, and if we’re lucky we have someone like Kelly Meloche who can relay these stories to our loved ones when we’re gone.
Kelly is a born storyteller, a quality which was quickly noticed by a funeral home director. She was told that she was a born celebrant, someone who meets with families when their loved one has passed and helps to tell their story at their funeral. Kelly shares honestly that she can’t say that she followed her celebrant training to a T; she made it her own by prioritizing telling the raw and true stories of those we’ve lost.
“Funerals are normally horrific to attend,” Kelly says. “They have nothing to do with the person we’ve lost. We’re gathered for them, but we’re not really addressing them or telling the stories of how they made us laugh or even how they frustrated us.”
To make the experience more authentic, before the celebration of life Kelly meets with the friends and family of the person who passed and asks them organic questions about the person’s life. This allows the funeral to truly represent the person in playing their favourite music, having that chocolate bar they loved, or doing a shot of Crown Royal as the hearse drives away.
“When people get to hear someone else’s story it gives us permission to look at our own stories.” Kelly explains that whether that person was a globetrotter, a wild child, battled their own demons while trying to be a good parent, struggled with abandonment and trauma, took some wrong turns during their life, or perhaps led a blissfully charmed life, those are parts worth hearing about. “We get to hear all of the layers, the sacrifices, the hardships. We’re all a mosaic and it helps us forgive ourselves and one another.”
Listening to hundreds of stories like these is what inspired Kelly to document them into a published book. “The book showcases more of Windsor-Essex’s altruistic heroes with a hidden cape,” Kelly says, explaining that her book offers the reader a chance to say, “I knew them, but I didn’t know that about them.” She wanted to share the stories that moved her, the ones about these everyday “regular people” who in fact helped her to realize that no one is “regular”, we all have a story and those stories make each of us amazing.
The title Leaving Your Light On: Inspirational Stories of Unforgettable Lives was born of the idea of wanting to keep the person’s energy alive and to leave their story for others to learn from or be inspired by when they’re gone.
The entirety of the book took Kelly 141 days to write. She already had a foundation of stories for the lives she had celebrated and interviewed, but she still had to change the language and wording. She didn’t want the letters to read as “dearly beloved”; she had to take out the funeral and bring the life back in. There were ups and downs to writing the book and she questioned whether people would want to read something she’d written, but one thing she didn’t expect when starting this project was how many people would want to be included in the collection. “It got hard saying no; I never wanted anyone to feel like their life wasn’t worth writing about.” Kelly wanted to pick a variety of stories that intersected all walks of life so every reader could find something relatable within.
The day her book hit the market was actually done by accident, Kelly shares. She was self publishing and once she had confirmed that everything looked good as a digital copy, she wanted to see a physical one. However, rather than hitting “order copy” she accidentally hit “publish”, so her book went live before she’d ever seen or touched it.
Kelly immediately ordered herself a copy as she watched other people’s orders begin to trickle in as well. There was nothing she could do at that point but hope that the copy was reader ready. As she was pulling up to her home one evening, she saw the Amazon package on her porch, picked it up, and almost immediately saw (actual) fireworks going off in her neighbourhood. Even before she ripped the package, she took this as a sign that it would all work out as planned. This “work of the heart”, as she calls it, was everything she was hoping for and more. The world responded positively to Leaving Your Light On, ranking Kelly’s book as Amazon’s Top Hit of New Releases in the “Inspirational” genre within three weeks.
Since then, she’s had more people expressing that they wanted their story told in this way, that they would want their grandkids to know who they really were, and to document it for them. “It’s part of our nature. We want to be seen and understood.” Kelly says that not everyone can articulate their feelings, so it’s her job to become a full-bodied listener. “If they’re stopping in their sentence, it might mean the topic is sensitive to someone else, or there could be friction within the family.” Kelly explains that it’s crucial for her to remain a safe space for everyone, where they can talk from their perspective and that no one’s voices are quashed or silenced.
“You don’t have to be famous to have your story matter,” Kelly expresses. Every life deserves to be told: the ones where they spent all of their time knitting; the epic love story where they were married over 60 years and never stopped holding hands; the immigration stories that transcend through generations. After eight years of doing this work, Kelly has heard an assortment of stories. She says it’s her great fortune to be part of these lives, to facilitate these ceremonies, and that she gets to live out her passion of helping people share their stories.
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