My name is Robin O'Brien. I have a daughter who is six and a son who is one. By the end of December, I may no longer be able to afford to live near them.

I'm fifty, I live near Listowel, Ontario, and I've been building things on computers since I was ten years old. For fourteen years I did it professionally, at the same employer. I built the quiet machinery underneath an organization: databases, the reports people made decisions from, and the .NET and C# code that held it together. I loved that work, and I was good at it.

But the job ran on rotating shifts: days, then nights, then days again, week after week. My body never found its rhythm, and constant sleep deprivation became real medical problems. With my doctor's support, I asked for a steady schedule. I asked dozens of times. It never came. In the end I had to choose between work I loved and the health I need to be a father. I chose my children.

At the same time, my marriage ended. I thought I'd be back on my feet within a few months. I've applied for hundreds of jobs since then, in my own field and far outside it, all the way down to warehouse and forklift work. I still apply every day. And every day I sit down and build things: apps, websites, anything that might catch and let me support my family.

The paycheque didn't come, so I did what I think most parents would do. I kept paying the mortgage on the home my children live in, every single month, because their roof comes before mine. I lived on my savings until they were gone. Then I cashed in my retirement savings, and it went to lawyers and to the mortgage on my children's home. Then, when there was nothing left, on credit. It went on groceries, gas, legal fees, and the ordinary things a life needs while I kept looking for work.

That's how a careful person ends up $40,000 in debt. Not all at once, and not on anything extravagant. One month at a time, while you're sure the next interview will be the one.

Here's what that debt does to me now. Every month, close to a thousand dollars of the little I have left goes to minimum payments and interest. That money doesn't buy a meal or a day. It just disappears. I have about three months of money left, and the debt is the hole in the bottom of the bucket.

I'm not asking anyone to carry me. I'm asking for help filling in the hole I'm standing in, so I'm on solid ground again and can get back to work digging my way out. Clearing this debt doesn't just settle the past. It stops the leak, so what I have lasts longer. It gives me the one thing I can't make on my own: time. Time to find work, time to finish what I've started for my children, and time to stay.

Homelessness was never a thought in my life. Not once. Now I'm quietly working out how I would handle it, in case family can't be the answer. I never imagined I'd be making that plan, and I'm making it while trying to stay close enough to be a dad.

My daughter is six. She's old enough to remember who showed up. My son is one. When I walk in, he yells "Dada!" and runs to me with his arms wide open. I want to be part of their ordinary days: a walk after supper, a movie on a Saturday, being there when one of them falls down. I've been working hard to be that father again, every day, through a long process, and I've come a long way. I'm close. I can't let money be the thing that ends it.

So I'm doing something I've never done before. I'm asking.

**Where your help goes:**

$40,000 to clear my debt (three credit cards and a line of credit), which stops the monthly payments and buys me time

$5,000 for legal costs, so I can keep going for time with my children

$5,000 for basic living costs while I find work

$50,000 in total

*(Card processing fees take about 3%. Anything beyond the goal goes to legal costs and living costs until I'm working again. I'll post updates showing exactly where every dollar went.)*

Time matters here. Every week that passes, the money I have left gets smaller. If you can give, please give now. Twenty dollars today is worth more than a hundred in December. If you can't give, please share this page today. Sharing it is how it reaches the one person who can help.

If you know of work in software, databases, reporting, web or app development, or anything honest near Listowel, Stratford, Kitchener-Waterloo, or remote, please tell me.

**And if you'd like to talk to me, I'll talk to you.** I'm a real person, and I'll answer every message you send through this page. If you want to hear it in my own voice, ask, and we'll find a time.

I'll treat what you give as a gift. But if my life ever turns around, I want to give it back: to you, if you'll let me, or to someone else standing where I'm standing now. And if there's ever something I can help you with, like a website, an app, a database, or a spreadsheet that's got out of hand, please don't hesitate to ask. I'd be glad to.

I don't think asking is weakness anymore. It's the oldest thing people do for each other. It's how anyone gets across a gap too wide to cross alone.

Thank you for reading this far.

— Robin