BARBER, OKLA. — Jakub Michael Wilden would have turned 30 Saturday. Instead, his mother stood among family and friends at the cemetery where he’s buried and asked for something else: a favorite memory of him.
About 25 people came out Saturday night. Family. Friends. People who’d known Jakub at different points in his 20 years — from Sept. 12, 1996, to June 12, 2017. One by one, they stood in a circle and told what they remembered, after the family lit paper lanterns and sent them up over the headstones.
Roxana Wilden went last.
“Tonight I asked everyone for a favorite memory of you, Jakub, and I heard some great ones!” she said. “Except the one of [him] texting and driving my Camaro! I hate that there will never be any new memories with him but I’m happy that I got to hear new ones that others have.”
Nine years after losing her son to suicide, the night held two things at once: gratitude for a memory she’d never heard and grief that the supply of memories stopped growing in 2017 and isn’t coming back. Her husband, Mike, and their daughters, Pretty Sky and Kalia, and their son, Robert, stood with her and shared memories of their own.
This year, the family asked a family friend to stand in the circle with them and report it all. They said they’ve decided that remembering Jakub privately isn’t enough anymore. What they hope this story does, the family said, is reach someone who still has time to get help before it’s too late.
That hope has real numbers behind it. American Indians and Alaska Natives had the highest age-adjusted suicide rate of any racial or ethnic group in the country in 2022, according to a fact sheet the National Indian Health Board published in January 2025 using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, and suicide was the second-leading cause of death for Native people ages 15 to 24 — Jakub’s age bracket.
None of those numbers were in the air Saturday night. What was in the air was a mother laughing about a Camaro story in the same breath she said she’ll never get another new memory of her son.
The lanterns went up one at a time until the sky over the cemetery held more light than dark for a little while. Nobody there needed it explained, and for a while nobody said anything at all, just watched until the last one went too high to see.
Jakub Michael Wilden would have turned 30 Saturday.
If you or someone you know is struggling:
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. Free, confidential, available 24/7. Veterans and service members can press 1 after dialing.
Crisis Text Line — text HOME to 741741, available 24/7.
You are not required to be in crisis to call. Talking to someone before things get worse isn’t a burden on them, whatever it feels like from where you’re standing.
