HeldFast creates thoughtfully planned gatherings that help people tell stories and express grief and gratitude before and after the loss of someone they love
Thoughtful Structure for Onward Moments
While many of life’s gatherings are meticulously planned over months or even years, those that honor the end of a life are often not afforded the luxury of intention and design.
A wedding may be a year in the making, down to the color of the napkins.
By necessity, funerals and visitations usually take place soon after a death.
Family and friends are asked to come together and remember a loved one while still adjusting to their absence.
HeldFast brings forethought to memorial occasions when time is short and grief leaves little room for planning.
A clear place to begin
Fewer decisions to make
A Guide to lead the room
Prompts that help guests speak or write
A eulogy shaped from many voices
Stories you have never heard
Memories kept in writing
Trusted venues and vendors
Gathering now or later
A sense of closure
What We Do
HeldFast supports remembrance alongside existing traditional arrangements. It can also plan an entire informal memorial for families not working with a funeral home or church.
The work centers on gathering stories and supporting those who speak, then saving and preserving what is said.
Explore HeldFast
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Traditional Event Accompaniments
We are your invited guest at a visitation or service you've already planned, helping people share their stories.
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Later or Less Traditional Events
Gatherings weeks or months later, after a cremation or in place of a traditional funeral.
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Anticipatory Sessions and Celebrations
Sessions and gatherings that include the person being honored, so they can listen, laugh, and add stories of their own.
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HeldFast Journeys Collection
Stories told in a loved one’s honor at the lake, the golf course, or the garden they loved, with them present to listen and take part, or after they’re gone.
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Coming Soon: Companion Collections Self-Guided
Materials for families who want to lead a memorial gathering on their own.
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Your Questions, Answered
What happens at a gathering, who takes part, and what becomes of the stories.
Your HeldFast Guide
I have spent most of my life listening to other people’s stories, as a teacher, a writer, and even during my days as a bartender. My work has always included helping people find their stories, guiding their telling, and finding ways to collect and share them.
Through HeldFast, I provide gentle structure while encouraging stories to unfold in ways that respect both the living and the departed, the people speaking and the people listening.
Scholar-Practitioner Statement
HeldFast emerges directly from my work as an English professor specializing in rhetoric, composition, and narrative practice. For two decades, my teaching and scholarship have centered on how individuals use language to make meaning, negotiate identity, and participate in private, familial, and civic lives.
HeldFast extends composition pedagogy to our working lives and deaths by applying scholarly frameworks of oral history to real-world contexts of legacy and transition.
In the writing classroom, I guide students through reflective, narrative, and inquiry-based writing, helping them articulate experiences they did not initially believe “counted” as knowledge. This pedagogical foundation informs HeldFast’s methodology.
As a practitioner-scholar, I approach storytelling as an act of service, rather than an extraction or performance. My role is to create conditions in which stories can emerge for oral and written preservation.
This work reflects my belief that lived experience constitutes a legitimate form of knowledge, and that preserving it is a civic act.
HeldFast Founder Kathie Marchlewski
