Well, here’s another facet of post-stroke surviving… our kids get whammied without the leadership of their parents – especially their fathers. I’m busy trying to keep things level and live the day to day, and dad has sunk into a trivia online, movies, and baseball life pattern. I didn’t look deep enough to see the worries he was having.

Funny, the grammar corrector program I use tried to change whammied to hammered. Either way, it fits.

Our son has been handling his college transfer by himself. He Aced his classes at the Community College and he keeps details very close to the vest – he has Asperger’s which is why it didn’t raise a red flag for me. Yesterday, he wrote a thank you note to the church and it was precious, but there was a piece in it that caught my attention. He was worried about several expenses that I didn’t realize he had.

I took out a loan in June, to cover his needs to get him situated, and to meet some needs in the household. Because he said everything was right, I let him splurge on dorm type things – a duvet cover, a mattress topper, a leather coat he wanted, new clothes, towels. Nothing that seemed excessive really, just some wants. I also got a few things for me – some shoes, a couple new tee shirts, I started a couple of projects I wanted for when he’s gone, to focus on and keep myself busy.

In typical kid fashion, he miscalculated his expenses. He also didn’t tell me until last night. So thinking all was well with his little send-off money in his account, my eyes have now been opened to a $1, 554 deficit. He can take out a loan – that’s not the problem. The problem is, he has to have all his expenses paid by the 14th. I could throttle him. I have no recourse but to try to borrow money from Steve’s brother for two weeks.

I had to talk to Steve. he’s mostly ok but I knew he’d get upset. In a normal world, we’d shake our heads and stress a bit and hubby would have handled things. He’d still have gotten angry, but it would have been alright. Instead, we had wailing and screaming and thrashing his cane and crying all night and growling explosively barking dogs and no sleep and screaming how he hates living here and how he just wants to be dead. I let my cool slip and told him to stop making everything about him. Totally the wrong thing to say…

So, I went to bed at midnight, got up at 6am, and have been brainstorming. I need $1,500 for two weeks or a loan from the bank in G’s name, or, maybe, just maybe, I can ask my daughter and her husband as a last resort. If anyone has any other ideas, please share them. I need options. I’d like to think the college could defer the rest of the money until he can get a loan disbursement in hand. He has to apply for a subsidized loan and honestly, I don’t know what that means. This young man has put his college on hold to help care for his father and give me basic support. He’s accepted academically into the #4 ranked public University in the country – no small feat with the stress we deal with. And this little amount shouldn’t mess up his starting his life. He has a dental appointment this morning or afternoon (I forget which) and is supposed to leave Thursday morning to move into his apartment.

I could scream but then, Steve’s already done it and it doesn’t help. I need a plan. And I need to NOT cry.