When Melinda Kane joins the New Jersey General Assembly on January 23, it will be the 15th anniversary of the death of her son Jeremy, a Marine reservist killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan.
“It’s a coincidence,” he said Gold Star’s mother three who previously served on the Cherry Hill City Council and the Camden County Board of Commissioners.
“But some say there are no cases.”
Kane won last Saturday’s special election of Camden County Democratic committee members to replace him Democrat Pamela Lampittwho resigned from the Assembly on December 31 after serving 18 years, the last 10 of which as deputy speaker. She became Camden County clerk earlier this month.
Kane plans to run for a full term this year in the 6th Legislative District, which includes Cherry Hill, Haddonfield and Voorhees. All 80 seats in the New Jersey General Assembly will be on the ballot this year, along with the governor’s office.
Former special education teacher Kane, 67, of Cherry Hill, has used the last 15 years to reinvent herself. This was accomplished by a metamorphosis fueled by grief and the family’s desire to serve. Her husband Bruce, who died of stomach cancer a year before Jeremy, was a doctor in the Army before becoming a pathologist at Cooper University Health Care in Camden.
“It’s something Jeremy talked about,” Kane said. “Work: The Importance of Leading a Meaningful Life.”
Kane said she never thought she would become a politician. “But,” she added, “I once heard a quote that went something like this: ‘If you live the life you never thought you’d live, you might as well do the things you never thought you’d do.’”
Raising a family in Cherry Hill
Kane likes to tell people that she moved to New Jersey from her native Buffalo “because of the weather.”
Just after graduating from college in 1979, she taught special education at Penns Grove High School in Salem County. Three years later she taught at Triton High School in Runnemede, Camden County, where she remained for another four years until Bruce was stationed in Louisiana, where Jeremy was born.
After three years in Louisiana, the family moved to Cherry Hill, where Kane raised his sons, including Jeremy and Daniel, 34, a foreign service officer with the State Department, and Benjamin, 31, who works in Battleship New Jersey museum ship in Camden. When the children were newborn, Kane founded Optical Jewels, where she designed and made jewelry.
Jeremy first attended college at Towson University in Maryland and then transferred to Rutgers University-Camden. He joined Marine Corps Reservist Program intended for students. Kane said Jeremy was “forced” to serve after 9/11.
“My husband and I were proud of his desire to go into the military, but we were vehemently against it,” Kane said. “We were afraid for him and tried very hard to convince him not to join the Marines.”
Bruce died in 2008. A year later, in October, Jeremy was deployed to Afghanistan. On January 23, 2010 at Helmand ProvinceAccording to Kane, he encountered a “suspicious man.” Jeremy apprehended the man, keeping him away from the other Marines, possibly saving their lives. The man then detonated a bomb attached to his body. Jeremi was 22 years aged.
“How could two terrible things happen to one family?” he asked Kane. When Jeremy went to war, “I thought the worst of our lives had happened and he would come home safe,” she added. “I was naive.”
A way to find meaning
After Jeremy’s death, Kane said she was interviewed by reporters and asked to speak at community events such as Memorial Day ceremonies: “I talked about who Jeremy was and how proud I was of him.”
Jeremy, who completed his first year of law school, posthumously received his degree from Rutgers-Camden.
Kane said that “someone who heard me speak – I don’t remember who – approached me about staying in public service.” Since both Bruce and Jeremy had served, she thought she could honor them by doing it herself.
“Life has become an amazing way to live over the last 15 years,” Kane said. “It was a way to find meaning.”
In 2011, she ran for Cherry Hill City Council and won. “I may not have been the happiest candidate,” she recalls. “I was in mourning. But people saw someone they could relate to and share their struggles with.
According to. Kane is admired for “turning pain into purpose.” Cherry Hill Mayor David Fleisher AND Camden County Commissioner Jeff Nashboth Democrats who used the same phrase to describe her.
Fleisher said Kane was uniquely qualified to connect with military families, adding that she “brought special meaning to our Memorial Day events. But her concern as a leader goes much broader than that.”
Kane was a councilor for almost eight years. She said, “Cherry Hill was peaceful and prosperous.” According to the data, the average household income there in 2023 was over $125,000 Census dataor about 1.5 times Camden County’s income of $84,000.
In 2019, Kane was asked to fill an unexpired county commissioner seat William Moen. The following year, he entered the New Jersey State Legislature to become an assemblyman and deputy majority leader representing the 5th Legislative District, which includes Camden and Gloucester counties.
“I was Melinda’s neighbor in Cherry Hill and watched her evolve as a commissioner,” Nash said. “She cares about people and has made it her personal mission to ensure Camden County veterans receive the benefits they deserve.”
Kane said that during her tenure, commissioners took pride in expanding the county’s parks as well as reducing crime in Camden City.
Later this month, after almost six years as commissioner, he will take up his seat in parliament.
During last Saturday’s special election, approximately 200 Democratic committee members from municipalities in the 6th Legislative District gathered to vote. Each political party has committee members who are themselves elected representatives. Because Kane was running for a seat held by Democrats, only Democratic committee members could vote.
Reflecting on the past 15 years, Kane noted that “a lot has changed.” She added: “My life has completely changed because of Jeremy’s death.
“I wish he was here. I hope I can make him proud of me.”
