‘She loved everything, and she loved everyone.’ Hundreds cry at Faye Swetlik funeral
A slideshow of happy photos from Faye Marie Swetlik’s six short years of life played over the sanctuary filled by hundreds who came to honor her life and grieve her death.
There was Faye, held and snuggled as a baby. As a toddler, carrying a basket of Easter eggs. As a bright-eyed, red-haired little girl beaming in a red tulle dress, trying on a Snapchat filter with spotted cat ears, eating a snow cone, dressed as a future teacher on career day, grinning through a missing pair of front teeth, smiling as she held a “First Day of First Grade” sign.
It was a highlight reel of scenes from a little girl’s life abruptly and tragically cut short.
A public memorial service for Faye was held Friday evening, one week and one day after she was found slain in her Cayce neighborhood.
“Faye was designed by God for a very special purpose, and look at all she did in a short little time,” Trinity Baptist Church Pastor Eddie Coakley said in his funeral message. “She brought energy and color into our world. She brought a school and community together. She taught us to love each other a little bit more and much better. ...
“In our minds, of course, little Faye left us way before we were ready for her to leave. But God was ready for her.”
Coakley read a three-minute eulogy written by Faye’s mother, Selena Collins, who described how she gave her baby her name.
“She really loved hearing this story,” the mourning mother wrote. “You see, Faye was French for ‘fairy.’ And when I was pregnant, she felt like fairies dancing around. And I always wanted her to always believe in magic. ...
“From the day she was born, we taught her to see the magic in everything, and the most important type of magic that we taught her was love. Faye loved so hard. She loved everything, and she loved everyone. There wasn’t a single person she couldn’t make smile.”
The child’s tragic death has amplified the impact of her short life.
Hundreds of people attended the memorial service at Trinity Baptist, one of the largest houses of worship in the small city of Cayce, where Faye lived and where her body was found just over a week ago after she went missing from her home. Many of the mourners wore pink and purple, the 6-year-old’s favorite colors.
They included teachers and students from Faye’s Springdale Elementary School, wearing matching lavender T-shirts; uniformed law enforcement officers; dozens of motorcycle bikers, who drove in procession, along with tow trucks, from the Churchill Heights neighborhood; S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster and his wife, Peggy; and hundreds more friends and strangers, young and old, who left few empty pews in the large church.
The first-grader went missing from her home in the Churchill Heights neighborhood last Monday afternoon, Feb. 10. Within hours, a desperate search had begun. News of her disappearance and prayers for her safe return spread around the country.
On Thursday, Feb. 13, her little body was found in a wooded area of her neighborhood.
She had been taken by a neighbor and killed within hours of her abduction, officials determined. Her killer, 30-year-old Coty Taylor, took his own life the day her body was found.
Since Faye’s disappearance and the discovery of her body, a tidal wave of grief and support has swept over the Swetlik family and the Cayce community.
Dozens of items — stuffed animals, balloons, flowers — have been laid in a memorial outside the entrance to her neighborhood. Precious toys left in Faye’s honor have been donated to the local children’s hospital.
Candles were lit and prayed over by dozens who gathered around her family at a vigil earlier this week, the day the community learned how Faye had been killed.
A local illustrator crafted the child’s angelic likeness in an image that’s been shared around social media. Painted rocks have been left around town as small tokens in her memory. T-shirts made in Faye’s honor were donated to her fellow students at Springdale Elementary School, local news station WLTX reported. The school’s principal has said the school will plan a memorial project to commemorate “sweet Faye’s lasting impact.”
Friday’s public service was in every sense a celebration of the joyful child’s life.
“God probably thought we needed more people who know their own mind, so he created Faye. He wanted more color in the world, so he created Faye,” Coakley said.
Faye loved to dress herself in pink and purple and pack her own lunch (complete with Kit Kat candy bars) to take to school, Coakley said. She loved to write cards and notes. She filled her bed with lots of blankets and pillows, and she loved dressing up in high heels.
“She loved to dance, she loved to move, she loved to play,” Coakley said. “And she loved to make people happy.”
Trinity Baptist, which seats 1,200-plus, was nearly filled to the brim, with mourners lining up outside more than an hour before the service began.
The service included two of Faye’s favorite songs, “Better When I’m Dancing” from “The Peanuts Movie” and a mournful tune called “Good Night Moon.”
Video clips of Faye were played on the sanctuary’s two large screens: The child singing “You Are My Sunshine” with a choir of other children; jumping in rain puddles, laughing and shaking her rear like a duckling; feeding birds at the zoo; looking into a camera lens to say to her mother, “I love you.”
Her mother’s eulogy ended with hopeful instruction to those who had been touched by the child’s life and death:
“So long as we can love one another, Faye’s memory will carry on. So I ask of you that when you leave here and any time you have a chance to, to love a little more, to be a little bit more kind, to compliment a stranger, to dance in the rain, to stop and smell the flowers, show just a little bit more love to everyone you meet, and just have a Faye day.”
