Massive stars, and the menagerie of explosions resulting from their deaths, are indispensable to creating a Universe that can harbour life as we know it. Kilonovae are the explosions from the merger of neutron stars, which are themselves the compact remnants left from supernova events marking the death of massive stars. They are a known site for neutron-rich element creation in the Universe (such as gold), but the extent of their contribution is still debated. A crucial piece of the puzzle is understanding their ancestors and the life they led, but only one kilonova has been detected so far: AT 2017gfo. In this talk I will present how our binary stellar evolution models can help us reconstruct the life story of the progenitor system of this (so far) unprecedented event, and how we are preparing for future kilonovae observations that will come in 2022/2023.