The Childhood I Almost Forgot

What would you do if you met the younger version of yourself? Would you try to correct your mistakes before they happened? Would you try to protect yourself from the hurts, the heartbreaks, and the quiet betrayals you are still trying to heal from? 

I once had a dream where I came face-to-face with my five year old self. It was from a time when life was still soft. When we were just three children and the fourth was still on the way. A time before we knew how quickly things could change. 

In that dream, I existed in two timelines at once. I was standing in my present while somehow walking inside my past.

She looked up at me with wide, curious eyes. The kind of eyes that believed in everything. My eyes. Big, bright, and unafraid. There was admiration in her gaze. The innocent kind children give adults they believe have life all figured out. 

I looked back at her with a tenderness that surprised me. The kind of tenderness a mother has for her child. For a moment, I forgot she was me. It honestly just felt like I was looking at my own daughter.

"Who are you?" she asked. 

I didn’t answer immediately. I just pulled her into my arms.

I held her tightly, like I was trying to protect her from things she did not even know were coming. In that moment, nothing else existed. Not the future. Not the past. Just the fragile present of holding a child who still believed the world was kind.

"I am you," I finally told her quietly. "Twenty five years from now." 

When I finally let go, she didn’t run off like most children would. She just kept looking at me, almost like she knew I belonged to her. 

So I took her everywhere.

It felt like our worlds had somehow merged. My present folded gently into her past. We walked through memories like they were rooms we could step into again. 

I saw my mother again, but she was young. Younger than I have ever really known her. She was carrying my little brother on her hip, with another child still growing quietly inside her. Life had not touched her with its full weight yet. There was still a lightness in her face. 

My brother was only about two then. Small. Soft. Still at that age where laughter comes easily and the world feels safe. 

We moved from moment to moment like visitors inside my own childhood. Seeing everyone again. Remembering without even trying. 

I even took her to meet the older version of my immediate younger sister. My sister bent slightly, studying her face with curiosity. 

"Who are you?" my five year old self asked. 

"That is your younger sister," I told her gently.

She looked again, then suddenly her face lit up. 

"Ogo? Is that you? You’re so big now!" 

Ogo laughed. 

"I’m even bigger than you now," she teased. "I can bully you if I want." 

"Don’t even try it," I said quickly. "I’m still here to defend her." 

We all laughed. The easy kind of laughter that only exists before life teaches you to be careful.

 

In that dream, only the younger version of my mother existed. The present version of her was nowhere to be found. It almost felt like the dream was trying to preserve only the time when everything still felt possible. 

We forgot everything else. We just smiled. We just existed.

I carried my baby brother again and kept kissing his cheeks. Over and over. Because he was so small. Because he was so beautiful. Because somewhere deep inside me, I think I already knew I would one day miss this. 

We played. We laughed. We got ready for school. We posed for pictures that only existed inside memory. For a while, I wasn’t an adult visiting the past. 

I was just a child again. 

There was one memory we stepped into that has stayed with me. It was sometime around 2002. My father dressed us up and took us to Mr. Biggs. He bought each of us whatever we wanted. He looked so young and handsome that day, walking proudly with his three little children like we were his greatest achievement. 

The sky was heavy with clouds, like rain was coming, but it did nothing to steal our joy.

Afterwards, he took us to Presidential Hotel. We sat near the swimming pool just enjoying the view like we had nowhere else to be. At some point he adjusted his sleek glasses and called a photographer to take our pictures. We posed with him sitting in the middle, quiet pride written all over his face while we sat close beside him. My father loved taking pictures in those days. He liked keeping memories. 

When the rain finally came, we went home. 

And somehow, inside that dream, I understood why. 

Then the dream began to fade. 

That was when she asked the question that broke something inside me. 

"Where is Ebube?" she asked innocently. "Where is Ebube?" 

And my heart just stopped.

I suddenly remembered something she did not know yet. 

My brother is no longer here. He died before he turned five. 

I looked at her and for a moment I wanted to tell her the truth. I wanted to prepare her. I wanted to save her from the shock that would one day split her little world open. 

Then I remembered something else. I was supposed to protect her. 

Before I could even decide what to say, I felt a hand touch me. I turned. It was Ogo. She didn’t say anything. She just shook her head gently. 

Don’t tell her. 

I understood. 

So I looked back at my five year old self and forced a small smile. 

"He’s not around right now," I told her softly. "He travelled for work." 

She accepted it immediately.

"Okay," she said, and skipped away. 

And I just stood there, carrying the weight of everything she did not yet know. 

I looked at her and suddenly I could see all the pain waiting for her in the years ahead. I wanted to warn her. 

About the second brother she would also lose years later. 

About love. 

About expectations. 

About heartbreak. 

About anxiety. 

About depression. 

About the nights she would cry quietly so nobody would hear. 

There was so much I wanted to say.

But the dream left me with questions. 

Why do we hold on so tightly to the things that hurt us? 

Why do we keep records of pain more carefully than we keep records of joy? 

Why do we let old wounds decide who we become? 

Because when I woke up, what stayed with me was not the pain. 

It was the laughter. 

I woke up remembering a good past. A childhood that was not only loss, but also warmth. A childhood where we laughed, played, posed for pictures, and believed life would always be kind. 

And I realized something important. 

If I had told her everything, she would not only have suffered. I would have stolen her joy. I would have replaced her beautiful world with my fears about the future. 

I would have made her carry burdens she was never meant to carry that early. 

So maybe some innocence deserves protection. 

Maybe some joys deserve to remain untouched.

And maybe growing up is not just about surviving pain, but also about remembering that before the pain, there was beauty too. 

As I think about that dream now, I realize something else. 

I am not broken. I came out of it still capable of love. Still capable of hope. Still capable of becoming. 

Yes, I have regrets. Yes, I learned some lessons the hard way. Yes, life was not always gentle. 

But those experiences shaped me into the woman I am today. 

And for the first time in a long time, I allowed myself to admit this: 

I had a good childhood too.