If Lon Coleman had his choice, he'd pick his brother Chase. In a heartbeat. He'd rather have his bike-loving, basketball-playing family clown alive than have Terry Gould, the father of five who received Chase's heart in a transplant, in his life. Gould understands. "That's absolutely right," Gould said. "I don't blame them for that one bit." But as far as second choices -- and second chances -- go, few top this. The Colemans lost 20-year-old Chase on May 10, 2003, in a car accident. The next day, Gould's kids got their father back when 25 years of heart problems ended with the transplant. Since then, something unique in the organ donation community has happened.

"The Colemans and the Goulds, they've become one family, truly," said Kim Zasa from Gift of Life Michigan. "They're living proof of how donation changes lives."

The surviving Coleman brothers, Lon, Brandon and Trevor, are trying to share that story -- of how their family traversed the terrain of grief to forge a bond with their brother's heart recipient -- and a message about the importance of organ donation.

Few places need that message like Michigan, where the state is 21% behind the national average of residents on the organ donation list, according to Gift of Life Michigan, an independent nonprofit that runs the state's organ donation program.

The Colemans have selected triathlons as their medium. They say they won't stop until they've done one in each state, including today in Dallas. There, before they swim, bike and run, they'll talk about how the Colemans and Goulds e-mail and call often. How they spend Thanksgivings and weddings and family reunions together. How at the Gould home in Plymouth, a photo of Chase hangs on the wall among the Goulds' school portraits.

"Without organ donation," said Lon Coleman, the oldest brother, "my family would have nothing. Nothing.

"You wouldn't believe how deep it is," said Coleman, 37.

And how healing.

All because it's what Chase would have wanted.

A happy guy