Ben Wilson was never good at waiting.
He was good at a lot of other things — he was friendly, intelligent, reassuring. But he was never good at waiting.
When he found out he could get a driver’s license a year earlier in Vermont than in his home state of New Jersey, he pulled together a few pieces of mail with the address from his ski house in Vermont, walked into the DMV and convinced them he was a resident. A little creative? Sure, but it worked.
Later, when he wanted to make sure he’d be first in line for the New Jersey DMV, he camped outside overnight with a deck chair for his real license. The next day, new license in hand, he convinced his dad to drive with him to Washington, DC to make a special purchase.
There was a motorcycle listed there and he was determined to get it, his first of four. It didn’t matter that he’d had his license for mere hours, or that his mom had printed out motorcycle injury statistics to deter him.
“He was not to be denied,” James Wilson, Ben’s father, said.
His parents grew to appreciate and support his strong-willed nature. Janet Wilson, his mom, said that eventually, they just had to sit back and pray that he had the right head on his shoulders. And he did.
***
Ben Pickett Wilson died from an accidental fall on March 17, 2025, at age 21, while on spring break with friends in Cancun, Mexico. He was a senior in the Kelley School of Business, a member of the Business Honors Program, a Founders Scholar every semester and in the Investment Banking Workshop. After interning at the investment banking firm Greenhill & Co. in New York the summer before his senior year, he had planned to return as a full-time analyst after graduation.
He was intelligent and excelled academically, but never in a way that made his peers feel inferior. He didn’t study 24/7 or obsessively check items on a to-do list. He just got things, and he was always happy to share his knowledge to help others.
He worked with intense energy when something excited him, putting hours and hours of work into his passion projects. Drew Bishop, one of his close friends and roommate, brought up a comparison his dad made: that the only people you hear of that will work 30-40 hours straight are the geniuses, the people that have the ability to change the world.
“It's like the Steve Jobs, the Elon Musks, the Nikola Teslas, who just would always dedicate the time until they could no longer function,” Drew said. “And that's just who he was.”
Ben could also teach himself anything, usually with great success. He once tried to wrap his prized BMW M4 before realizing he’d need a professional-grade shop to get it just right. He rigged an LED light system for his desk, 3D printed a phone holder for his dad, took apart and reassembled engines and in the weeks before his death, crafted a prototype for a motorcycle dashcam he was excited to explore the commercial applications of.
Ben’s love for machines wasn’t just about thrill — it was about peace of mind. When school, recruiting, or life in general got too heavy, Janet remembered, he’d emerge after hours holed up in his room and say, “I gotta go for a ride,” and head out on his motorcycle into the night, just to let off steam.
One of his biggest projects was that BMW M4, his “prized possession,” as Drew put it. The car shared space with a collection of vehicles — three motorcycles, a beat-up old truck and a dirt bike — that only grew after that first trip to Washington D.C. to buy his first motorcycle. Drew said Ben would see something on sale on Facebook Marketplace late at night and buy it on a whim, picking it up as soon as he could.
“And then he’d come pull in around 4 a.m. with this motorcycle, and it's like the craziest looking thing I’ve ever seen, and he's doing wheelies,” Drew said.
His friends described him as an adrenaline junkie, which his parents corroborated with many stories — doing donuts in the snow, towing friends on a piece of cardboard with an Ethernet cord during a blizzard, doing flips with his snowboard on a trampoline and constantly pushing people out of their comfort zones.
His mom described skiing with him in Jackson Hole, traversing mountains in fear because Ben kept bringing her with him to black diamond slopes and difficult trails.
“But sure enough, as soon as I would ski down the trail, there he was waiting for me,” Janet said. “He always found me. It was just — it was like a miracle.”
For all his thrill seeking, he never kept anyone at arm's length.
“He was always there for me in any point,” Joe Simonian, Ben’s friend and New York roommate, said. “He would always have time to talk, even though he’d get back at like 11:30 at night.”
Ben never tried to be the center of attention, but people gravitated toward him anyway — drawn in by his openness, his steady nature and the way he seemed to move through life with purpose and joy.
***
Senior Ece Kadayifcilar, Ben’s friend and classmate, described Ben as her “rock” through the stress of finance workshop recruitment, encouraging her after rough interviews and times of doubt.
“He's like, ‘you're gonna be okay,’” Ece said. “And I was like, doubting my whole life and existence, and he's like ‘no, you're gonna be fine.’ It ended up being fine.”
Ece first met Ben in the spring of their freshman year and her first impression of him was as one of the smartest and most considerate people she had ever met. That sentiment didn’t change as she got to know him.
“I feel like nobody would ever be able to say anything bad about him,” she said.
Ben’s friends and family said he made them want to try more, to do more, to live life bigger. Drew said that, after the funeral, they talked about how they wanted to emulate Ben’s daringness and spontaneity.
Drew said if Ben wanted to go snowboarding, he would drive wherever he could to go snowboarding. Or if he wanted to “go do wheelies in Tennessee,” he’d leave the next weekend.
Ben’s parents and Drew all brought up Ben’s study abroad experience in Barcelona in the spring of his junior year.
“On a lark, he went alone to Jordan,” James said.
He wanted to see as much of the world as possible, so he found the cheapest flight and booked it.
“He said, ‘I'm not going to tell you where I went until I see you in person,’” Janet said. “And then he brought all the gifts with him to our hotel that he had collected throughout his travels during that semester and that's when we found out he went to Jordan.”
He didn’t wait for permission. And then he’d pull his loved ones into his adventures too.
“I mean, he just enriched our lives in so many ways, and it was a magical journey being with him,” Janet said. “Just because you never know where you’re going next or what you’re gonna get.”
Even in his last days, Ben was exploring, smiling, saying “yes” to the moment. He didn’t leave much unfinished because he lived so completely. What he did leave, though, were pieces and mementos of himself for his loved ones to have as tangible relics of his character and spirit.
After he returned to their shared house at IU after spring break, Drew was met with a space that Ben had left “in shambles,” as he put it. Ben had control of the basement and garage of their house, and Drew came home to scattered motorcycle parts, weight benches, work benches, an entire car’s exhaust and the back seats of his car and truck. Since being back in Bloomington, he’s come to appreciate the mess.
“It’s more of a happy reminder than anything, seeing all the stuff he had,” Drew said.
He said Ben wouldn’t want him to dwell on everything left behind.
“He'd be like, ‘hey, go fix my bike. Go handle the situation that I left,’” Drew said.
Back in New Jersey, his parents talked about his gift-giving ability, like remembering an off-hand comment his mom made about always wanting a 1970s-era Gabbigale doll and giving it to her the next Christmas. Or buying kitschy decor for James’ Florida condo and a Venice puzzle for his mom, who fell in love with the city after studying there in college.
These keepsakes, among others, serve as daily reminders of his presence, even in small moments. His dad still uses a ceramic bowl Ben made as a kid to store his paperclips.
“Obviously you think about him every time you dip in there and get a paper clip or whatever,” James said. “It’s great to be surrounded by all the things he either made or gave us or photographs he took. It’s — he’s always with us, which is comforting.”
***
In a tribute they wrote to Ben and shared with the IDS, his parents reflected on the gift of his presence with both joy and a deep sense of loss.
“I guess I always felt that my time with you might be short,” Janet wrote. “I really believe I always felt that way or at least maybe felt that way when I came to know who you were, that something this beautiful and so precious couldn’t possibly last forever.”
During his freshman year, Ben and his parents started a tradition of Facetiming every Sunday. James reassured Ben that he wasn’t obligated to call them, that he was free to make other plans and do as he pleased. But Ben never felt that obligation, James said. He was always excited to tell his parents about what he had going on, to be able to catch up on each other’s lives.
And though those Sunday calls will no longer ring, the conversation has yet to cease.
In their joint eulogy, James began by referencing this weekly ritual.
"Hey Ben, sorry we didn't get a chance to have our weekly Facetime yesterday,” he wrote. “I think that's a first. Anyway, I'm here with mom and we just wanted to tell you a few things before you go on your trip later today."
He passed it off to Janet, who had a message of her own.
“I just want you to know,” Janet said. “That raising you has been the greatest privilege of my entire life.”
