Xander was so alive and so active in the world that looking at his picture is just devastating. We know that he is an eternal part of our lives, but this existence is so much less without him. This has been the most difficult thing we have ever had to write. It makes us have to face our biggest regret that we won’t be able to see him accomplish his goals.
Xander was going uphill on 1300 East just north of the 12300 South intersection where the road does a large S-turn. The worst cloudburst of the year had caught him unprepared. Xander’s phone was found on the floor of the 2000 Mustang we had just purchased for him six weeks earlier. It appears he was texting just before he lost control of the car. The police determined that the condition of the tires was a contributing factor to the crash.
Xander was one of those rare souls who touched everyone he met. He was not one to sit at home alone. Even when he gamed online he did it with a group from around the world. He would talk to them and do homework at the same time. We had no idea just how many people knew and loved him.
Xander only had to do his solo flight to earn his private pilot’s license. He had discovered his love of aircraft after getting a job working for MillionAir, who also offered him the opportunity to head up the 2007 Santa Flight. This program involved helping to collect and distribute food, clothing and toys for Indian Reservations in Utah at Christmas time. He coordinated the distribution of over 80,000 lbs. of food and hundreds of articles of clothing and toys and logged more than 2,000 hours of personal and volunteer time on it.
Our solace comes from the stories others have told us of the things he did. At his funeral, we met and cried with some of the people he knew. They ranged from CEOs of corporations, the mayor of Draper and State Representative Greg Hughes, to those kids at school nobody understood. We really didn’t know our son as much as we thought. We found out how he took care of so many others and was an influence for good in their lives.
