Winning the lottery can be an important event in a person’s life, always depending on the amount. It can be a happy anecdote if the participation pays for itself, but when the amounts multiply the stories are more surprising than the previous ones. And on this occasion, we find one of the strangest, that the journalist Quentin Fottrell has been able to tell.
As reported in the British newspaper Daily Star, a citizen of the state of California, in the United States, would have hidden from his family an award he won more than ten years ago. The man, who calls himself a “low profile winner”, stated this in a letter to the English newspaper, in response to a publication in which they asked if it was correct or not to leave a large sum of money for oneself, in his case, 55 million dollars.
According to what he said, such a sum placed him among great fortunes in the world, but he did not seem to feel comfortable with that great life. “I have kept a low profile. I bought a new truck and a house, but I told them I was renting the house. Was I wrong not to tell anyone? I know my parents wouldn’t have asked for anything, but my sister would have told me she donated half of it to her church. I have not donated money to anyone or to any organization, ”he specified in his letter.
“Now I am 67 years old and I am very comfortable with my life. I don’t spend much. I have no children, and both parents are deceased. I haven’t had a relationship with my sister because I don’t like her or her husband, and I haven’t talked to her in over 10 years. I hope she has no idea where she lives. Also, my parents took her out of the house before she died. She tried to do some horrible things to our parents, which I managed to stop. Was I wrong not to tell anyone about my winnings?”, she continued in the letter.
Faced with the fears and the feeling of guilt that might be under his conscience, Fottrell calmed his interlocutor, assuring his secret and that he should not have any kind of negative feeling or carry remorse. “I don’t see anything wrong with living your life the way you want to live it, and resisting the urge to share the news with anyone, including and especially your family,” the journalist replied.
He also had time to be surprised at the possibility of remaining anonymous in a state where the names of lottery winners are part of the public record. “Enjoy your good fortune and your privacy, while it lasts. Once the latter is gone, no amount of money will get him back ”, he dedicated to his unknown interlocutor as a farewell.
