Thomas Cole

Thomas Charles Cole passed away Sunday, June 12th, surrounded by loved ones.

Services to be held Friday, June 24th at 10:30 am at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church 6322 S Lakeview St in Littleton.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations in memory of Tom to Praying Hands Ranch where he took Patrick to equine therapy for several years. To make a donation, please follow this link, http://www.prayinghandsranch.org/.

Thomas "Tom" Charles Cole was born in Howell, Michigan on June 22, 1954 to Jack and Hilda (Hall) Cole. He grew up with his older sister, Linda Cole Linden in a loving family. Tom loved horses and owned his own horse, Duke. As a child, Tom was already deeply thoughtful. One day after he came home from school, he stared for hours at a copy of the United States Constitution that hung on the wall, and when his mother asked him what he was doing, he recited from memory the entire document. He was painfully shy but had a number of troublemaker friends including Andy, Chip and Johnny among others.

Tom went to Michigan State University on a football scholarship, where he studied criminal justice and graduated in early 1977. He loved to argue about politics and talk about history. He had a straightforward, no-nonsense way of thinking about serious subjects, and was frequently on the side of tolerance, acceptance, pragmatism, and peace. He later used that knowledge as a prison guard at Ionia State Prison.

A beer-drinking, deep-voiced, blue-collar, sports-loving, outdoorsy man's man of 6'4", anybody who got to know Tom could easily tell he had a kind spirit. He spoke openly about his support for women's equality and was quick to let another guy know if his behavior was out of line. He appreciated a strong, assertive woman with a good mind, which was why he somersaulted head over heels for his wife Robin when they met in college. He liked to say that when he laid eyes on her, a tall, leggy lady of Greek descent with long dark hair, his first thought was, "Wowza." Robin had a big beautiful smile, but nobody could make her laugh as easily as Tom. After one late night out with the guys, Tom decided he wanted to make a romantic gesture, and climbed the scaffolding to what he thought was Robin's window at her sorority house. He had the wrong window, but all the sisters knew whose man he was and when they stopped laughing at him and a friend got Robin out of bed, she asked him what he was doing. He said, "I just really wanted to see you."

Following his stint as a prison guard, Tom moved to Colorado as he said, "to escape all the rain." Robin moved to Colorado as well, and on July 11, 1981, Thomas Charles Cole married Robin Lynn Smith at Littleton Presbyterian Church. Tom and Robin settled in the suburbs and had four children - Courtney, Rachel, Patrick, and Hannah. Courtney passed away hours after being born, and Robin said that was one of the only times she'd ever seen Tom cry when he put his head in his hands and wept great, powerful, manly tears.

Tom loved being a dad. The Cole family went through plenty of hard times, but he never took his anger out on his children and he almost always came home for dinner and frequently helped with homework. When Patrick was born three months premature and the stress of worrying over a little baby got to the whole family, Tom taught Rachel how to draw. He would sit intently for hours with a sketchbook and charcoal making realistic pictures of trees, the dogs, copies from his sports magazines. Rachel was three at the time and wanted him to show her how to draw like that. He told her he'd start with her portrait and asked her to sit still. She took this to be a game and jumped around and made faces and shrieked, so Tom drew a witch. After that, Rachel sat close to him when he sketched and watched intently how he first drafted faint lines of axis and then gradually added heavier shape, finally using his big, gnarly thumb to smudge the charcoal and soften the edges.

As Patrick grew, it was clear that he would have a hard time walking and could eventually end up in a wheelchair. When Patrick was a little kid, Tom carted him around on his shoulders through family vacations to National Parks, the Smith grandparents' farm in Tennessee, and Civil War battle sites. "We don't do anything, that we can't all do together," Tom would say. When Patrick got crutches, Tom would hang behind with Patrick who walked more slowly and urged him to take steps how the physical therapist said he should with "flat feet." Even when Patrick had to wear painful leg braces that made him cry, Tom would be there quietly comforting him, "You've got a lot of life ahead of you where you're going to have to do this. You're going to have to learn how to be strong and brave. It's not fair. You want fair, I'll get you a dictionary because that's the only place in life where you'll find fair. It's not fair that you can't walk, but I know that you can do this. You're going to grow up and do everything everyone else does." Tom was right - Patrick did learn at a very young age from his father how to be strong and brave, and Tom was prouder than no one but Robin when Patrick went to college, completed an internship in Vietnam, worked in the Colorado state capital, and eventually moved to Washington DC to work for a think tank.

The youngest, Hannah was her father's darling. Tom called her, "Snookie" and loved to comb out her long, curly red hair. Hannah inherited her father's love of making trouble. One Saturday afternoon, Tom took Rachel, Patrick, and Hannah out for ice cream. All three kids got some version of a disgusting, candy-packed, sugar-monster creation, and Tom got a hot fudge sundae. Hannah inhaled hers and after she recovered from her ice cream headache, she eyeballed Tom's sundae. He'd been slowly working his way around the swirl, leaving the glob of hot fudge on top for the last bite. "Can I have that?" Hannah asked. "Nope," Tom said. Hannah smiled and faster than Tom could react, she reached over with her spoon and took the glob of hot fudge that Tom had been saving, popping it straight into her mouth. Not only did Rachel and Patrick laugh, but so did the table of people sitting nearby who had observed this scene. Hannah started to cry, "Everyone is making fun of me." Tom was snickering and giving Hannah a strange look of admiration. He gave her belly a gentle poke, "Is it already in here? I'm going to have to go get it, I guess." Hannah laughed too and after that, Tom always shielded his sundaes from her.

For nearly four decades Tom worked in Colorado as a carpenter and his craftsmanship can be seen all over Denver, including Denver International Airport - he said there's definitely no doomsday bunker. For the last 17 years, he worked at CEI with men and women for whom he cared and had respect.

The same way he memorized the U.S. Constitution as a kid, Tom always had the habit of sitting and thinking for hours. When there was a job site where there was a lot of petrified rock laying around, Tom began bringing pieces home and lining them up in the backyard. After work, he liked to get a Budweiser, sit on a lawn chair, admire his growing petrified rock collection, and think. If you could catch him in one of these moments, he'd have a lot to say about our complicated world, God, and how to live a good life. He taught Sunday school at the Lutheran church where he and Robin were members. Tom didn't believe that anybody of any creed could possibly know all the right answers, or even most of them. He did believe that the universe is much more vast than we perceive. He believed in a benevolent force more wise than we can understand. He believed that it was important, whatever you believe in, to do your best to be kind, to keep your promises, to challenge your own perspective instead of having just any old easy opinion, and to love the people in your life really, really well. Tom thought you could see God in nature and liked to get out of the city and go fishing in rivers all over the state. He would take his children hiking through the woods. He'd sing to scare the bears and mountain lions and coyotes and other assorted boogie things away, "Big, ugly guy coming through. Don't want to hurt nobody. Just want to get a look at your beautiful trees and water and rocks, and talk about God."

Tom was diagnosed with cancer in October 2014. The only place you'll find fair in life is in the dictionary, but Tom promised his family he'd do his best to fight for his life. He was strong and brave, with Robin fighting just as hard with him, in the brutal months that followed. When Tom got sicker than he'd ever been, Rachel, Patrick and Hannah made the commitment to be by his side to help he and Robin in any way possible. The whole family took turns holding his hand, giving him medicine, comforting him. Tom never once for a minute gave up on life until the very last when he closed his eyes and finally let himself rest. On June 12, 2016, Tom laid in a hospital bed that had been installed in the living room. As Patrick held Tom's hand and Robin stroked his head, Tom took his last breath.

There is no doubt, that wherever the good go, Tom is there... Tom is survived by his wife Robin, his three adult children Rachel, Patrick and Hannah, his sister Linda, his sister in law Linda, and countless friends. One hell of a guy, Thomas "Tom" Charles Cole will be missed greater than words in any dictionary could express.