My father died alone on the floor of a gym at his office on December 30, 2010.  In the short days that have followed, I have had one great regret—that he, a man truly beloved by his family and friends, who held so many in his heart, died alone.  It seems cruel in the truest since of the word that, in the final chapter of my dad's story, a man who gave himself to the world died without a friend to hold his hand as he made the bitter-sweet transition from this world to the next.

I call this a cruel ending to his final chapter because, if there were ever a man whose life was a story, it was my father.  Its pages have been faithfully and honestly written over the course of his life, his story penned by his own hand and those of the characters who filled his pages.

There are stories of my mom, us children, his friends and relatives.  To retell the stories of anyone besides myself would not do them justice—only my dad could give those tales the full measure of emotion and excitement they deserve.  I can only tell stories that I was personally involved in, and hope to do them justice.

It's fitting that, as far as my twin brother and I were concerned, my dad had a story about us that began the second that we were born.  Upon first holding my brother in his arms, he would always say that Greg had this bright and energetic look that said, "Hey!  You!  Give me something to do!"  When I arrived 23 minutes later (the longest 23 minutes of his life, according to my dad) he said that my face had the relaxed notion of "Hey, man, pass me a beer."

That day, my brother and I were born, beginning another chapter in my dad's life.  To say, though, that I was simply born is not 100% accurate.  In Denver you are born, yes, but you are also born a Broncos fan.  Many, too, who came to the Mile High City have been re-born in the tradition of the Blue and Orange, their faithful support and cheers echoing throughout the city on any given Sunday in the fall.  My father was no different.  As Greg and I grew and Tonya passed from toddler to school-aged girl, each Sunday my dad sat in his defiantly-1970's Lazy-Boy chair, pointing out positions and plays, educating me on the ways of the game, watching the triumphs and defeats on any given Sunday from as far back as I can remember.  As I grew up a Broncos fan, there was no greater joy than watching those games with my father.  It was a ritual that I loved.

We ended up sharing a number of great football moments together.  Not only was he with the whole family when the Broncos won their Super Bowls, but he was also with me when, as a intern with the Broncos in 2004, the team rented out a theater to screen "Friday Night Lights," and all the players, coaches and staff could bring a friend or family member with them to see it.  Of course, my first and only choice to bring along with me was my dad.  Before the movie, I watched him go wide-eyed as he met some of Denver's greatest coaches and players—Rod Smith, Champ Bailey, John Lynch and Mike Shanahan.  The look on his face was just like a kid given a key to a candy store just after closing time, as the owner gave him a little wink and said "Knock yourself out."

But as my dad raised me to be Broncos devotee, I was also growing up as a son to my parents and as a brother to my own twin brother and older sister.  The three of us made absolutely certain that whatever little hair my dad had still had when he all of us children arrived on this earth was thinned and whitened even more considerably.  There was a night when my brother, being his usual rebellious self, argued with my parents over a pizza dinner.  Grabbing a piece of pizza and advancing around the table, my brother held it as if it were a hand grenade.  Greg threatened that if my mom didn't give in to his side of the argument, he would throw the pizza right in her face.  My mom, now standing up from the table and obviously caring much less about the situation than normal, dared him to do it.

With a mighty heave, my brother flung the pepperoni-laden weapon across the kitchen.  With catlike reflexes born of chasing kids and rushing to catch the school bus, my mom ducked out of the way.  In the moment that it became clear that the pizza would not hit my mom time seemed to stand still, until with a resounding splat the dangerous weapon landed—cheese first—right in my dad's face, sliding slowly off if and falling to the floor without any further collateral damage.

In an instant, the argument was forgotten as we all fell to the floor laughing, trying to avoid the spent face-pizza by my dad's side.

As far as the us kids are concerned, some of our favorite childhood memories would have to be spending the summers in Michigan with my grandparents on my dad's side.  They lived in a small town called Tawas City, which was right on Lake Huron.  It was exactly the sort of small-town America that people write novels about-- there was a Main Street with a candy shop that to this day still seems like it was a football field long, a quiet beach with a kite stand where they would set off the fireworks on the Fourth of July, and citizens who knew each other by sight.

We never spent more than a couple of weeks there in the summer, but to this day I still count them as the most happy and perfect days of my life.  Grandma and Grandpa were always smiling when we were around, and there was always something to do in that small house or ranging stretch of nearby land.  My sister would sit on a long limb of one of the pine trees near the house, and my dad would shake the end of it, bouncing her up and down as she laughed until she cried.  My dad and my sister did this almost without fail each year we went there, and thinking back on it now I can still see the absolute love for my sister and joy in our family when I picture my dad's face when he playing with her there on the edge of the perfect and mysterious forest.  If there was a more beautiful chapter of my father's life than our trips to Michigan, I personally was not a part of it.

As time always does, the ceaseless passage of the moments brought an end to those happy days.  My grandpa died when I was too young to really understand the consequences of death, and my grandma passed a couple of years later.  When she died, within a week after Christmas, we went to the house to help sort through its contents with my uncle.  In the dead of winter and with the two feet of snow piled around the house, it was eerie setting.  Without my grandma's laugh and my grandpa's serene smile, the place was truly empty.  

When I was boarding the plane to come back to Colorado from my home in California, the correlation was just too strong.  I was fearful that, without my father around, my hometown would feel just as eerie and forbidding as my grandparent's house did so many years ago.  In much the same way that the memories of my grandparents seemed cold and distant in their former home, I was afraid that Denver would feel equally unsatisfying.

What I failed to understand as a child, though, I know understand as a man.  A place can seem lonely and cold without the people who defined it, but in the end it's not the places that you shared with them, but the memories, the stories, the pages of each life's chapters, that are important.  The largest truck in the world couldn't take any of the places where I knew my father best with me, but in the stories that we wrote together, I can take him with me everywhere.

Last night, I gathered together with many of my dad's friends from his work, and there was one consistently amazing thing about everyone there—everyone had some sort of story to tell about him, whether it was someone who had worked with my dad for a year, or someone who had worked with him back in 1977, had a story to tell about my dad.  It was always something that he did to brighten their day, make them smile or do them a favor.

My dad, who died without anyone in the room with him, did not die alone—for if it's true that when you die, your life passes before your eyes, then he was truly not by himself.  Every last one of us was there with him, a plot line in a story spanning 63 years, and undoubtedly the best story he's ever experienced.  It is true that men die without anyone beside them, but a good man never dies alone.  And my father, more than anything else, was a good man.