Dear JoJo,
I don’t always get an opportunity to thank you for all the help you give us when we need a babysitter. I also don’t think you realise how important you are to us and how grateful Josh and I truly are for all you do.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe you will be twenty next month, especially when I still see you as the 13-year-old who would barge into Josh’s room and ask me a million and one questions all those years ago. But at the same time its hard to believe you are only nineteen when you take such good care of the kids, sometimes putting them before your own life.
You see, a babysitter is not just someone to keep the kids occupied. A babysitter is a person you trust with the most important part of your life; your children. It is someone who knows what your children want and need, when it's time to send them to bed or discipline them and how to react in an emergency.
But for us, JoJo, you are so much more than that.
You are someone who truly loves Ciara and Ryan, someone who plays with them and makes them laugh, and someone who wipes away their tears. You are that person whose arrival makes the kids burst with excitement and give out when it’s time for you to leave.
But you are also the person who gave me what other people couldn't - time with my dad before he died.
I don’t know if you realise how grateful I am and always will be for all your help in the weeks before my dad’s death. When Josh had to go to work, you came down to mind the kids so I could go around to the hospital- sometimes at very short notice.
You also stayed for days after he died so that I could concentrate on the funeral, and you always made sure I was OK. You also helped with the housework when I was in the depth of grief which was a huge weight off my shoulders.
And you never complained once about any of it.
I hope after reading this letter you understand what a truly amazing person you are; without you there would be so many things Josh and I would be unable to do, and we are so thankful to you.
Yours sincerely,
One very grateful mammy
