Can you give me some money?

I’ve been helping my son fill out scholarship applications. A whole lot of asking and not a whole lot of receiving. It is a painstaking task of finding an Easter Egg on the internet that probably millions of other young people and their moms and dads are trying to find. The rewards, sometimes, are only a fraction of what we need. A teensy little amount. But we all want it. We all need it. And, for most of us we are eluded, again and again.

Of all of the parent-responsible activities over the last 18, well actually, the last 33 years, that has been the most stressful, is trying to get people to give my child money to go to school. Oh, there’s definitely people out there doing it, but it’s the how to get them to give it to us that is the stressful part. Essays written, FAFSA completed, deadlines met, or missed, and school is coming…soon. The government says we have enough to pay for it ourselves. We don’t. I can admit to a lack of planning, but I can also place blame on an economy that is pulling at us this way and that.

In my free time (late, late at night or early, super early in the morning) I tap away on the computer. “Here’s another one!” I shoot it to my son’s phone. “Apply for this one.” For others, I enter the information, upload one of the saved essays from my harddrive, the recommendation letters, the transcript. I list in on the tracker. There’s a lot on the tracker. Only one marked received. But I’m not discouraged. Soon I will get up from my computer and go out to hustle up some money on a second job, I’ll Door Dash, I’ll finish this editing project or search for another. Next year, this will be easier, I tell myself. Maybe. But for now, I grind.

I try not to worry, though. I know we will do this, one way or another. With or without the scholarships. Going to college is a big deal. It’s a dream that, if he wants it, he should be allowed to dream. He should be able to travel down the road that he wants for himself. It’s a shame that it comes at such an expense. But here we are, here I am, late nights, early mornings looking for more scholarships to apply for, hoping that this one will grant him or that one will grant him something. The truth of the matter is, we need help affording college. $100 here, $500 there, will actually add up so we apply for them all. We keep looking for more opportunities and avoid the scams. Prayerfully and trusting that there’s some money out there for us, I’ll just keep asking, “Can you give me some money?”