I've written in here about my brother, the coolest human on the planet, and my mother, the second coolest, but I've barely mentioned my father unless it was in conjunction with the phrase "worthless piss of a..."

My father.

A Texan, born and raised, who relocated to Podunk, Montana, on a whim and the promise of a free building for his medical practice as well as an insanely good deal on a huge house in a small-ass Montana town.

Not quite possessing of the "nuclear" family, as he had just adopted his new wife's two-year old boy, he was patient and waited 4 years before they conceived of his only biological child... me.

5 year passed, and he had become so absorbed in his role as a "healer" and "the doctor," that he never noticed how unhappy his wife was, and how she was growing away from him.

He was caught completely unaware when she left him for another woman.

The ensuing court battle for custody of their two children was ugly, to say the least. Many tears were shed, many sessions with "professionals" were held, and the youngest child, myself at 5 years old, retained absolutely no memory of any of those proceedings.

His wife moved away, maintaining only weekend visitation rights while he had sole custody of me and my brother.

He was ill-equipped to raise two boys on his own, and we were both the extremely fortunate recipients of the "village-raises-the-child" system that only a small town seems to be capable of.

I found it odd when my brother actually sat down and shared a meal with my father and I, so when he finally left for college, it meant little more to me than I got to move into the basement apartment that he previously inhabited.

I figured myself as lucky, being granted such freedom while growing up, as I only had to inform my father of where I would be and for what duration, and I could absolutely do as I pleased.

He only seemed to pay attention when I made him "look bad" in the public eye. If I did bad shit that nobody ever knew about, he didn't seem to care that much.

When I was 15, he made the mistake of telling me a week in advance that he would be out of town for the weekend, and I would be looking after myself.

I did what any peer-acceptance-seeking sophomore in High School would have done.

I had a party that blew that fucking town UP.

It was an absolute blast, for all involved, but the unfortunate side-effect was that it tore my father's house to shreds.

He was pissed, to say the least, but he didn't shout, he didn't throw things, he didn't rant and rave.

He didn't even ground me.

He simply pulled me aside, in the middle of our gravel driveway, and explained, very diplomatically, that I had done the unforgivable, and disrespected his belongings in his own home.

I was told that we were no longer father and son, but that our relationship was that of "roommates" from now on. He explained that he couldn't continue being a "father" to me if I was to act as I had.

I went to live on my friend Robert's ranch the next day. I was there for two months before my father asked me if I planned on spending any time at "home" again.

I asked him why, and he told me that he had been giving Robert's family money for my "room and board" and it was starting to get expensive.

I told him that I was earning my keep on Robert's ranch, that I would earn my way in this life, and that I didn't need a "goddam dime" from him, ever again.

I found out later that he'd given them $200, and that they refused to take it.

I used my first month's wages from working at a neighboring ranch to buy a bull at auction, and I sold it a year later for enough money to buy my very own truck.

I eventually started spending more time at "home" in my own apartment in the basement, and soon came to enjoy the freedom of my own living space with almost no parental supervision.

As I came to appreciate this though, so did every swinging dick in town, and I ended up "loaning" out my room to wayward lovers so much that it became known as, "The Love Palace."

I would have lived full-time at Robert's family's ranch, except his beloved girlfriend lived but a few blocks from me in town, and he utilized "The Love Palace" more than the entire football team.

After two and a half solid years of buying my own groceries, clothes, gas, and comic books, I finally graduated High School, and moved in with AdoptedBrother and his father outside of Billings. I cooked and bartended at a shithole bar while saving up money for college. I'd been accepted at Texas A&M and it wasn't looking like it was going to be affordable, but I was going to attend there if it broke me for life.

At the end of the summer, my brother took a week off of work, came to Montana, and helped me pack up my meager belongings for our trip to A&M, where he also attended.

I loaded everything I owned into the back of my '88 Ford Ranger, kissed my dogs goodbye, and prepared to leave my hometown forever.

My father stopped us at the front door.

He had in his hands a stack of Savings Bonds that he'd been purchasing, as a tax write-off or something, for the majority of my life. They were all in my name, and he told me that they had always been intended for my college funding.

Not knowing anything about Savings Bonds, I counted them all at face value, and became excited that he'd just handed me $10,000 in cash.

He gave me a brief hug and said, "Good luck."

I thanked him and we left, my brother never making physical contact with him during his entire visit.

At the bank in College Station, we found out that bonds need to "mature" to achieve full face-value, and that ours were only worth about $2,500.

While I figured this was enough to get me started into my college/work career, my opportunistic brother talked me into "investing" in his side-business and promised me that I would never have to hold down a job while school would be "paid for in full."

4 years later, I was still as broke as the day I gave my brother that money, and found myself pulling parts at the salvage yard my brother managed, making slightly over minimum wage and working with not a single soul that spoke English (Spanglish or Ghetto were the only choices).

I left for Denver, Colorado in the summer of '97, with $137 in my pocket, and everything I owned, now including a small brown bitchdog, packed into my '88 Ford Ranger.

The longest period of time I'd spent in my life with my mother since I was a child, was the 3 months that I lived in her basement in Denver, saving up for an apartment and searching for a decent job and a local school that would accept me.

I worked and slaved away at CU-Denver, eventually receiving my degree in '01, and landing a solid job. I bought a new truck, paid off some debt, and bought a house with The (ex)Girl within a year.

My contact with my father had diminished to two phone conversations a year, one around my birthday and one around Christmas. He remarried, and his wife, my stepmother, whom I love to death, began pestering me to visit more often.

My father never asked me for a thing, much like I never asked him for a thing.

A couple years ago, my stepmother was diagnosed with breast cancer.

As testament to her feisty nature, she expressed nothing but extreme annoyance at this faceless thing that sought to interrupt her life without permission. But it laid her quite low, and things were iffy for a long while.

She recovered though, her hair grew back, and her piss-and-vinegar personality once again shined through.

We grew fairly close during this time and I'm fond of saying that the only thing that I really can't stand about her, is that she married him. Other than that, she's great.

My father called me tonight. He never calls, but he called tonight.

He wasn't kept "in the loop" during the "break-up" of me and The Girl, and only found out tangentially, so he thought he would "make a more concerted effort at communication" and give me his recent news himself.

My stepmother's found a lump again. They're checking her out as I write this.

For the first time in my life, he asked something of me.

He asked that I pray for her.

That hardened, judgmental, self-righteous, prick that I grew up with, had his voice cracking on the phone, as he asked me to keep his beloved wife in my prayers tonight, for she will most likely need them.

I told him I would pray, though I haven't done so in 12 years and have no real religious beliefs.

I told him I would because he asked me to.

I find myself wondering at what age any of us can ever reach before we stop seeking approval from the gruff, controlling men that had such power over our early lives.

I sat on the back patio, smoking a cigarette, and wondered what had changed about me that meant I was finally "grown up" and what had changed about my father that meant he could finally tell me that I had built a good life and that I was a good man.

What changed with us that he could call and finally ask something of me?

Things haven't been easy for me lately, and I'm still given to seemingly random fits of depression, so I only noticed the tears when they made a wet, thumping noise on my denim jacket.

It was then that I realized I've been waiting 25 years to hear such simple words from one person...

"I'm proud of you, son."

If my stepmother knew I was asking this, she would be genuinely pissed, so I'm not going to actually ASK, but...

Do me a small favor, and just put your thoughts towards someone close to you right now. If you know anybody that is facing something tough ahead, give them a little extra, for me.

I'd sure appreciate it.