Dowagiac’s Jaylen Weller was not the type of person who would do something halfway, especially when he put his mind to it.

Weller poured himself into his job at Faith Plastics in Marcellus, often working seven days a week and picking up as much overtime as he could.

He was also devoted to arts and music, teaching himself how to play guitar as teenager while picking up new talents along the way.

And, when it came to his longtime girlfriend, Kylie Benkert, his devotion helped the two navigate rocky waters as they began to plan their life together.

“They butted heads sometimes, but they always held on because of their love for one another,” said Jenny Hughes, Weller’s mother.

Those plans were tragically cut short on a snowy roadway earlier this month.

Weller and his girlfriend both died on Dec. 4 from injuries sustained in a car accident in Van Buren County. The two were on their way back home from the Marcellus factory where they both worked when Weller lost control of the vehicle and collided with an oncoming truck.

Born in Niles, Weller spent most of his life growing up in Dowagiac, outside a brief time when his
family lived in Arizona, Hughes said. Even while living in Decatur, Weller’s parents insisted on keeping him in the Dowagiac school district, his mother said.

“He was very smart, and he picked up on things very quickly,” Hughes said. “If he put his mind to something, he could do it.”

In spite of falling behind in his schooling while in high school, Weller graduated from the Pathfinders Education program in 2013, walking with the other seniors during graduation that spring. After graduating, he and a friend moved for a short time to Grand Rapids before coming back to the Dowagiac area, Hughes said.

A naturally gifted artist, Weller fell in love with music — in particular, the guitar — as a teenager, with Hughes purchasing him his first electric guitar when he was 15, she said. While never intending to turn his hobby into a profession, Weller devoted himself to his music, playing with several bands in his free time, Hughes said.

In many ways, his passion was a way for him to express himself, especially in the years following the separation between Hughes and Weller’s father, Charles, she said.

“He was holding on to a lot of hurt,” Hughes said. “He used art as an outlet for that. He could just lose himself to the music.”

Weller also learned how to sing, and had recently started to use poi, a style of performance art using spinning, tethered weights. He even tried showing his mother — a dance instructor — how to use the equipment, though she ended up hitting herself several times with them, she said.

In recent months, Weller and Benkert had gotten more serious in their relationship, with him working extra shifts at work to help support her. On Thanksgiving, he spent time at her parent’s place, where he had a long heart-to-heart with her father, Chad, telling him he was looking for engagement rings.

“We were expecting him to ask her to marry him around Christmas time,” Chad said.

Following the accident, many of Weller’s friends came out to support his grieving family, helping to raise more than $1,000 for his funeral expenses from people throughout the community, Hughes said.

“The outpour of love I have seen for my son is overwhelming,” she said. “I am so grateful. I could never have imagined it.”