Hundreds of fans and friends from across the country gathered at a church in the Licking County countryside Friday to to the singer known as Nightbirde.
Marczewski, 31, . While her life took her to various places across the U.S., including Nashville and, later, California, when she , her ties to central Ohio are what led Marczewski’s family to choose Cornerstone Church in Heath as the place to celebrate her life.
“We wanted to do it in the church where she spent a lot of time when she was here,” said her eldest brother, Mitch, who helped organize the event. It was also livestreamed on YouTube, with thousands of viewers following along.
Friends and strangers began gathering outside the church entrance 20 minutes before the doors opened for the 6:30 p.m. service. Inside, the lobby was decorated with photos of Marczewski, smiling what her father, Mitchell, would refer to in his message as her “million dollar smile.”
The evening began and ended with music — worship led by two of Jane’s three siblings, Mitch and younger sister Katelyn, who wrote an original song for the occasion. In between was a mixture of laughter, tears and gently murmured “Amens” as the .
“If…our admiration for Jane stops at Jane, we'll be missing something very major, because Jane was a reflection of the Jesus that she loved,” said Cornerstone lead pastor Todd Garman. “The reason she was so magnetic, magnanimous, others-centered, servant hearted, intentional, was because she was imitating — imperfectly — the Jesus of the Scriptures.”
Family members and friends from various time periods in Jane’s life shared entertaining stories to illustrate Marczewski’s fun-loving, spontaneous and mischievous personality: The time they turned her minivan into “Cash Cab” and tried to pick up random strangers, or the time they plastered pancakes all over the pastor’s yard, or went skinny dipping at church camp.
Her best friend of 14 years, Abby Hernandez, called Jane “magnetic, vibrant, selfless, and the most profound friend of my life. ”
The pair last summer got tattoos of a heart that each drew on the other’s arm, a reminder for Hernandez of the way Marczewski used to ask, “How is your heart?”
“These last couple weeks, as I've looked down and seen that reminder of her lasting presence, both emotionally and physically. Now I can't help but hear her ask me, ‘Abby, how is your heart?’,” Hernandez said. “I have wanted more than anything to look her face to face and tell her how much my heart is breaking since she left this earth. But instead, I'm asking God to relay that message to Jane. So, God, please tell Jane, thank you for being the best friend I ever had, that I miss you.”
'I’m there to give people a gift.':
Mitch described his sister as his best friend, who always knew what to say and was an example of generosity and kindness, taking under her wing children from the rougher parts of Lynchburg, Va., where she went to college, ministering to the youth at Cornerstone or reading the Bible to women in the Davidson County Jail.
“Jane was consistently giving and she was consistently looking for ways to bless other people,” he said.
All of the speakers were quick to point to Marczewski’s faith as a beacon that kept her hopeful even when her diagnosis was grim.
“Jesus is why she believed a painfully tragic life could still be worth living — that life could be beautiful even when the world came crashing down,” said friend Celeste Kuriokos.
Jane is survived by her parents, Mitchell and Sharon Marczewski, of Zanesville; three siblings; and numerous other family members and friends.
When she appeared for the first time on America’s Got Talent for auditions that aired in June, she told the judges she had a 2 percent chance of survival, with cancer in her lungs, spine and liver.
"But 2% isn't 0%. Two percent is something and I wish people knew how amazing it is," she told the judges at the time.
That evening she earned the coveted “Golden Buzzer” from Simon Cowell after performing her original song, “It’s OK.”
Marczewski dropped out of the competition in August to focus on her health and spent her final months with her brother, Andrew, in California. He resigned his full-time job as a software developer in order to devote himself to his sister’s care — a move his family lauded Friday evening.
Because of her positive experience with cancer treatment in California, Marczewski’s family established The Nightbirde Foundation to help raise money for artists struggling to raise the funds for cancer treatment and hope to see Marczewski’s legacy help “another Jane” in the future, Mitch said.
“The goal for us is to be able to create a foundation…that's going to be able to help people that are in need, help with travel expenses and help people be able to get the treatment in the places that they want to have it,” he said.
'Jane was an amazing person':
Among the attendees at Friday’s service was Miranda Mack, who attended school with Marczewski at Licking County Christian Academy. She came to pay respects to the friend whom she remembers fondly for her “giggles and pranks.”
Having also teamed up with Marczewski in pancake-related shenanigans, Mack said her heart always felt lighter after she’d spent time with Jane, a soul who will not soon be forgotten.
“This world has lost something,” Mack said.
