Tayo, my treasured childhood gem-LOH 196

My family isn’t that type where we had everything in excess. Even though we were not hungry, we didn’t have so much to an extent where children would be gifted toys. Though the prices were not that much, toys were not a thing in my household. Among my friends, only a few had the chance to have real toy cars, guns, water games and all. However, luck smiled on me one day.

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It was an end of the year party in my school, and thankfully, one of my mum’s friends paid for me. I would’ve cried my eyes out if I hadn’t gotten a chance to attend the event because it was my real first experience in owning a toy I cherished. In the pack, there was one plastic game like that. I really can’t remember what it was like because I didn’t pay attention to it. However, there was a particular one that caught my eyes. It was a cute plastic doll with full hair, well-shaped nose, red-lipped, ears perfectly carved, and legs long just like the ones we watched on TV. It was so beautiful.

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My friends would visit me to play with the doll that I named Tayo. I don’t know how I came about that name though, but I remember very well that when I backed it one day and one of my aunts asked me the name of my baby, I gladly responded, “Tayo”. Why? Perhaps I just liked the name.

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My mum was a seamstress, and she taught me a bit of sewing. So, changing fits for my dear doll was a responsibility that I enforced on myself. I would save up to buy the things I knew my doll would never need, and I would end up using them. I was the mum, so all the benefits of birthing newborn, (in this case, my doll) was to be enjoyed by me.

My mum’s excess clothing, I cut into pieces to make fits for my dear doll. I fed it even though it wouldn’t open its mouth to eat. One day, I wanted to force-feed it, so I cut its mouth open so that the little food I was feeding would somehow enter its belly. Okay, that was so childish, but it was fun. However, realizing the opening cannot be closed again, it was saddening. I was so down throughout when my dear doll wouldn’t close its mouth. I blamed myself so severely for cutting its mouth open, but I still went ahead to feed it some more food when I ate later.

I started learning how to plait hair with my doll. Its hair was so long that I braided it, twisted it, and even made cornrows for her. I wouldn’t sleep without my dear doll by my side. We were sworn friends already, so no parting anyways.

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My mum gave up on telling me to put away my doll when I wouldn’t listen. Not because I was stubborn, it’s just that, I wouldn’t let anything hurt my dear doll because it was out of sight. So, anywhere I went, it went with me, including school even though it never left my backpack for the fear of getting it seized by my class teacher.

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One day when my friends were playing with my dear doll, one of them wanted to check what I didn’t know, so he removed one of its legs. That was the beginning of the end between myself and my dear doll. I didn’t intentionally lose it, however, my playmates tend to always find one thing or another wrong with its head or bumbum, so they tried to check and check and check until all the body parts got lost.

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