‘I did not abandon my mother’ - Woman refutes claims from amputee

Rushika Reece, daughter of Maxine Hyatt, a diabetic amputee who said she only receives assistance from one child since having become ill, is refuting claims that she has abandoned her mother.

"My mother is a very ungrateful woman and mi ago look beyond things because I can't keep people in my heart. Mi nah go out of my way to please my mother, as I am living my life for my kids to look up to me," she said while advising her mother to look back on her life.

"She is at a point where God has slowed her down because she was moving too fast and God try to draw her back and show her say 'Yow, Maxine anno suh it go'," she said. Hyatt, 52, of Bull Bay, St Andrew, lost her right leg and the toes off her left foot last February. In a story in the March 18 edition of THE STAR, she said she believed that she was cursed. In an accompanying video, she said her oldest daughter Petresa is her only help, and blasted Reece and another daughter for turning their backs on her.

Reece said that, at age four, she recalled that she was sent to live with an aunt in St Thomas. However, because of several issues, she went to live with Hyatt and her father when she was about 12. But, with seven children in the home, resources were stretched, and Reece soon left again.

"By the time I was 16, I had gone to live with my boyfriend and he is the person who is my babyfather now. I had a baby at age 18, 19 and 20," she said. Reece said that, in 2014, she left Bull Bay with her children and spouse to reside in another parish.

"I moved all over the place just to make life comfortable for my kids. I was basically a child myself," she said. Reece said that, when her mother told her about her blackened and withering foot, she was barely working but still managed to send her some cash.

"I told her to give me some time because I had just moved in with my babyfather's sister and we were dependent on her. Mi get a little day's work and I get $10,000 and send $6,000 to give her," Reece said. Hyatt also stated that Reece did not attend her brothers' funeral after the two siblings were killed three years ago in Bull Bay. Reece said she attended virtually .

"I didn't go because of the circumstances behind their deaths and I ran leave the ghetto because we didn't want to get caught up in it. I mourned for my brothers. I didn't contribute to the funeral because, at the time, I wasn't working. I barely had food and my children were getting free lunch at school. Things were so bad that, at a time, I was teaching my children from home, but the teachers said I must send them and don't keep them at home," Reece said.

"She say in the video that I abandon her but how would I do that when I am on my own from I am 16?" she added. "Mi never live with her because, at four, I was living with someone else. Out of the seven of us, none of us never done high school. From my father get lay off, none of us never get to finish high school."

Reece said the last time she spoke with Hyatt was 2023 but the conversation did not well.

"She wanted us to come and live and take care of her like we don't have any life of our own. Honestly, mi more obligated to mi father than mi mother because he used to take care of mi until him get lay off. He has a stroke now and he needs help," she said.