From: Stephen A. Quaye, Toronto-Canada.

An illegal immigrant managed to hide and work for a living in a foreign country for a couple of years. All these while her hope, was to generate enough capital by whatever means and return to her home country to invest the capital.

Then she put all her hope in winning a Powerball lottery as the only means to generate enough capital for better living back home as she has been envisaging. Every Wednesday and Saturday, she will go and queue at the store where tickets were being sold and try her lock.

On the third year of her illegal stay in the country, she won several hundred thousands of dollars and she cancelled her intention to legalize her stay in the country but rather return to her home country and invest the money.

Looking at the winsome amount of the money this woman won in the lottery, the government tried to legalize her stay in the country so she can spend the huge money there but she insisted she was leaving the country so she left but all the money was later spent on unnecessary things.

If not because of the arguments that my previous articles have generated about the fact that money can not be one’s God or buy everlasting happiness as some readers have challenged, like I will leave it there.

But for the purpose of substantiating the points further, I have done further research and want to end my thoughts on money and happiness finally with this piece. Here I will present to you three different stories of people who have won lottery and what happened to them afterwards. 1. JACK WHITTAKER He woke up on Christmas morning of 2002 to perhaps the biggest gift imaginable as he had won the Powerball lottery jackpot of 315 million dollars.

Whittaker was searching for advice as it was on Christmas day when the winning was announced and together with his family appeared on several Television networks.

But the Powerball winner said he regretted winning the lottery as since he won the lottery there was no control for greed because when he had something there were people that wanted something so he wished he tore that ticket up.

He had good intensions such as helping people who were in big need, he wanted to supply food to the hungry, clothe to children who needed clothe as well as build churches and within months he handed over 15million dollars for the construction of two churches alone.

Jack Whittaker formed a foundation and he was besieged by requests for help as all sort of people wrote letters making requests such as,”people wanting entertainment systems, people wanting Hummers, people wanting houses-absolutely bizarre things”.

At the age of 14, he met the woman who would become his wife and started his construction company. Whittaker said it was the birth of his granddaughter that finally changed his obsession with work. By the time he won the lottery he said he was doing 16million to 17 million worth of work and enjoyed years of success with few complaints but less than a year after winning the lottery things began to change as he spent at least 3 million dollars fending off lawsuits resulting in Whittaker taking to heavy drinking of alcohol to console himself.

The Powerball winner alienated just about everyone in town and things came to a head when he left his car running in front of a pink pony strip club and more than 2,000 in cash was stolen.

Jack Whittaker began to believe that the Powerball winning was a curse on him when his granddaughter took to drugs because of her weekly allowance and was found dead wrapped in a plastic sheet in a house he owns else where after two week search.

2. GRAHAM GELINEAU

This man died a broken hearted miserly recluse at the age of 59, estranged from family and took sick-or too tightfisted-to spend his millions as reported by the Toronto Sun Newspaper on April 10, 2011

Friends of the Ontario biggest-ever lottery winner who won 37 million dollars in 2007 from a lotto 6/40 ticket to the newspaper the winner disappeared after collecting his money and was never spotted in the cheap room he rented in a boarding house on St. Clair Avenue West.

Graham made his escape plan and nobody saw him again and after his death, there was no official death notice, no viewing was conducted as he knew there would be all manner of people crawling all over the room looking for him after that winsome money had been given to him.

Last but not the least ALLEN AND VIOLET LARGE

These Canadian couple won 10.9 million dollars in lottery but gave almost all of it away to charity. As was reported by the CBS News, Allen and Violet Large won the fortune in a July 14 Lotto 6/49 draw and decided to donate 98 per cent of it, some 10.6 million saving the rest for a rainy day.

According to ALLEN LARGE, a 75 year old retired welder, they were quite happy neither with what they had and the way they were going as they had no plans because they were not travelers, not night prowlers nor bar hoppers.

After taking care of their family, the larges donated the bulk of the prize to churches, fire departments, cemeteries and the Red Cross in Lower Truro, as well as hospitals where Violet who has cancer and was undergoing treatment as they said they never bought a thing because it was never a thing they needed

“I am happy with what we got. Money can not buy happiness”. But it could help the recipients of their generosity.”

It made us feel good that we could do something to help other people says Allen adding that he and Violet decided a week before they picked up their winnings to give most of it away.

The retired couples had worked for 30 years in Ontario and have put away money every year before retiring and returning home in Nova Scotia.

“We weren’t millionaires before, but we had enough to keep us going in our retirement years,” said Allen Large.

From all the examples I have given to support my points that money can not buy happiness there is not a single one of them who won lottery and decided to pocket the money and was successful in life.

Do you know why many of the winners hire commercial drivers to take them to where they would collect their money? Because many of them out of joy tried to drive their cars and they got involved in accidents.

Some winners refuse to go for the money immediately notice is served them of their win because if care is not taken it will land them in trouble. Like Whittaker, he was doing millions worth or work when he won the lottery but suffered severely after the Powerball.

Allen and Violet, gave almost all that they won to charity and they were happy they did because no body came chasing them for money. In reality, there is no where under this big sun that one can challenge that money can buy happiness.

Having a moderate amount of it and being helpful to the people who are in need brings a lot of blessing than having a winsome and lead a worthless life afterwards.

THE AUTHOR, STEPHEN A.QUAYE, IS THE FORMER EASTERN RGIONAL REPORT OF THE GHANAIAN CHRONICLE CURENTLY A FREELANCE WRITER IN TORONTO-CANADA. HIS EMAIL ADDRESS teemagi2003@yahoo.com End.