Should Rosalie have stayed in Barbados?
The call beckons, especially to the best most industrious Bajans: Go over and away. You can make more money, have a better life for yourself and your children.
Some of those adventures work out, and some don’t. For Marcus and Shona in Brooklyn, New York, it worked out but after a few years they came home anyways.
For Rosalie, it was another story…
Does Rosalie have any regrets after leaving Bim more than 40 years ago? At 87 years old she has nothing, and lives in Montreal, Canada on welfare, food banks, subsidized housing and the charity of others.
But at 87, she’s accepted it all and at least feels accomplished in her steadfast goal of granting her daughters a better life abroad.
“I read my Bible and I try not to worry. Why worry about what you don’t have when you can be thankful for what you have?” she said. “I don’t believe (it’s good) to mope, you have to be careful not to depress yourself. It doesn’t make sense to pull yourself even further down worrying that you can’t have this or that. It doesn’t make sense.
“And it’s amazing how the Lord will send someone to give you a biscuit or a little sugar when you need it. So you worry for nothing.”
Rosalie is among the thousands who are to receive a $125 cheque from The Gazette Christmas Fund this year. The money helps families and individuals in need get through the holiday season.
… read the entire article at the Montreal Canada Gazette: Rosalie gave up everything to give her daughters a better life
Barbados Free Press 
Over and away doesn’t work out for many but they lack the money to come home.
I wonder why if Rosalie gave up everything to give her daughters a better life her daughters are not there helping their mother to have a better life now.
@j chalmers: Very good point.
So where these daughters that she “gave a better life to”. How come she has to get a $125 cheque to help her out at Xmas and have two big able bajan daughters with good jobs. How come she has to be on welfare and food stamps with two daughters that she “sought a better life for “Shame on them…..
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2013 23:07:49 +0000 To: jdlion@hotmail.co.uk
Based on what I read in the Montreal Canada Gazette newspaper, Rosie’s 2 daughters help support her. Maybe they have families/children of their own and cannot support their mum 100% financially, or as much as they would like.
Could it be that Rosie does not want her daughters to take care of her in such like, because there is help available and she is satisfied with the help she gets. Who knows?
I don’t think we ever get the full story in some of these situations, especially those that have a negative outcome.
look wunna if she is a Canadian citizen she will be taken care of 1000 times better than in barbados.what wunna talking about.
free medical,free pills,free food,all in canada,free clothes.all is there if you know where to go.
http://toronto.en.craigslist.ca/zip/
free stuff all over canada.that cost thousands in barbados wunna meking sport.free doctors not bajan doctors ,real ones.
I believe people are unrealistic about living in Canada and the US. I cannot say I was better off living aboard or staying in Barbados. There is nothing free about living in Canada iabingy. The work is hard, rents are expensive, the place is cold leading to depression, joint pain and especially in Quebec, the discrimination keeps you back. Canadians are not taken care of better than Bajans living in Barbados.
Cheryl Waterman has a more realistic and honest view in my opinion. There is nothing free in Canada, it just appears that way from a distance.
There are no free lunches in Canada. Cheryl’s view maybe true for some but not all, but still true. For a minute there I had an image from Austin Clarke story. Bajans would to Canada get cold, freeze and they go mad.
No free lunch at all.