June, Jenny, Joyce, Jean, Joan.
June, Jenny, Joyce, Jean, Joan.
I think I learned this before I had even learned the names of the days of the week. My brother, Kim and I would try to see who could recite it faster.
June, Jenny, Joyce, Jean, Joan. The Crasto Sisters, The 5 Jays. They have always been a package deal, like 5 peas in a pod. A constant in my life. Like the vertebrae of the family, these 5 together supported this super tight knit family through their prayer, their uplifting messages, joyful songs and over the top corniness.
Jojo being the youngest, one would expect her to be the spoilt little sister but she was so far from it. She loved to make her sisters happy and was an incredible source of strength to each of them at different stages in their lives. Even though she was the baby or perhaps it was because of it, she had the ability to rally her sisters (and their families) into doing anything. Almost always for the good of others and quite often to add a bit of masti and fun.
Jojo was not only my aunt, she was also my Godmother and I have always felt like I won the Jackpot with her and Keith as my Godparents. She has been my role model and my inspiration in different ways in every phase of life. She and Keith both played such huge roles in my life as a baby. They were the ones to bring mommy back from the hospital and to help her in all those early trying days of parenthood because Daddy had to stay in Lagos. As a young kid, I was thrilled to have the youngest, the coolest of the Jays as my Godma. She was the “heppest” as my mom would say, so fashionable and well put together. When people started telling me I looked like her, I was thrilled! I mean how could I not be? Her smile could light up any room and I decided I wanted to be a source of joy for people like she was.
As I got a bit older, I realized it wasn’t just her beauty that made people want to be around her. I started to take notice of how she interacted with people. She was so gentle in the way she spoke to every single person she met from the dhobi-walla to the priest and even us, her mischievous nieces and nephews. As the cool auntie, she would often take on lots of time with her nephews and nieces,who would get up to lots of mischief. She somehow managed to stay calm and collected even in the face of bratty kids. And now as a mother and a teacher who faces bratty kids daily, she is even more of a hero to me. In these situations, she had to let go of her pride in order to make us feel respected and loved even while punishing us for our own good. In these situations she was imitating Christ.
I saw her strive to be more like Christ in so many other ways. She was generous with her resources, especially the one that is often hardest to give and costs the most to so many: her time. I remember one time she took us to an orphanage to play with the children there and to drop off donations. She wanted to teach us empathy, how to put ourselves in the place of others so that we could learn to put others before ourselves.
It was this caring nature of hers that made her such a magnet for people. She was our biggest cheerleader, encouraging us to try new things and to commit ourselves to the interests we love. Anyone who knew her even for a minute felt like they had known her all their lives. She listened to their stories and would go to such great lengths to help them. This was most clearly evident to me in the past two years while she was battling cancer. Even though she was suffering and in pain, she still wanted to make others happy. She was still organizing fun activities, getting outfits and sari blouses made, entertaining countless visitors and smiling through her pain because she knew that her smile would bring comfort to us.
It is so hard to make sense of the world without Jojo but her faith in God and his plan for us was unwavering, and this is why I know that I have to follow my Godmother’s example and put my trust in Him. If we could all be just a little bit more like Jojo, live a life that is full, full of prayer, full of smiles, full of mischief, full of the things that make you happy, full of time with the people you love and full of concern and action for the less fortunate, then we would all get close to being more Christ-like and this world will be a better, happier and brighter place.