Monday night means "How I Met Your Mother" for me. HIMYM is one of my favorite TV shows, and Monday night's episode was no exception.

To recap, Barney finally meets his long-lost father, and is disappointed; he's not the cool guy Barney envisioned. Worse yet, his dad has a traditional family, with a wife and son. Barney becomes angry and lashes out at his dad's family. Later, Barney realizes it's because he doesn't have the traditional family he always wanted.

Near the end of the show, Barney takes down a basketball hoop at his father's house. If he never had the traditional family, at least he was going to have the iconic hoop over the garage, Barney reasoned.

The episode hit a little too close to home for me. And that's what good television, or film, or books should do. Jim Valvano, the late basketball coach at North Carolina State, said it best just before he passed away from cancer. Every day, we should think, laugh and cry. That's a full day, he said.

Monday's HIMYM episode provided some of all three for me. You see, as a kid I was raised by my grandparents. I never knew my biological father. I, too, felt the emotions Barney felt. I, too, in the past had visions of grandeur when it came to my father. I, too, felt a void.

That's where my childhood basketball hoop comes into play.

My grandparents were older when they took me in at six weeks old. They were too busy trying to scrape together a living to know or care much about sports. I understood that at some level.

But sports were what I lived for. Baseball in the summer and basketball in the winter, they were my escape. I was Johnny Bench behind the plate. I was Earl 'the Pearl" Monroe on the basketball court, shooting turnaround jumpers.

But I didn't have a basketball goal when I was a young boy. Lightning struck a tall cottonwood tree in our front yard, tearing off a strip of bark about 6 feet above the ground. That exposed strip of cottonwood tree became my basketball goal.

Until my freshman year in high school.

One of my uncles, David, bought a basketball goal for me and put it on a pole in our backyard, right in front of the no-longer used outhouse.

Thanks to David, I lived in the backyard, shooting baskets until darkness came. When the winter snow began to thaw, I would look yearningly out the back window, willing the ground to harden. Of course, I couldn't resist shooting hoops too soon, with my ball ending up caked in mud.

Thanks to David, I could hoop it up anytime (sans snow). David later also became my big brother when my grandparents legally adopted me while I was in high school. But the role he really helped to fill was that of surrogate father of a sorts. David played catch with me in the front yard and took me fishing on my birthday every year I can remember, until I was 15 or 16. Truth be told, fishing didn't matter so much; spending time with him did.

Our parents do their best to raise us. But others help along the way, I think. Maybe it's a high school history teacher. Or a junior high track coach. Maybe the school librarian or music teacher. It could be anyone and everyone who helped each one of us along the way, as we struggled to find out who we truly were.

And, I wonder if those who helped us chart our true course realize now how much of an impact they have made in our lives. Have we told them how much they made a difference?

If you can think of those who befriended you while growing up, maybe letting them know now would be repaying the gift they gave you.

Like Barney, I never had my father there for me. But I didn't need to tear down a basketball goal in frustration; I already had one.

For that, I can thank my uncle, who became my brother, who became so much more.

Thank you, David.