STILL BECOMING
📖 NICOLE WA CUCU
S
TILL BECOMING
By
Chloe Nicole
COPYRIGHT PAGE (fictional manuscript style)
All memories belong to the author.
This is a personal memoir written from lived experience and recollection.
DEDICATION
To my mum, who carried both presence and absence in my life.
To my grandma, whose bicycle carried my childhood between worlds.
To my greatgrandma, whose words stayed even when I didn’t understand them.
To Cheryl and Kim, my siblings and witnesses of my becoming.
To Evon, my childhood anchor.
And to every version of me that survived what I did not yet understand.
PROLOGUE — THE WORLD DID NOT ASK IF I WAS READY
I
did not enter the world quietly.
I arrived in Pumwani Maternity Hospital in Nairobi, into a room already filled with expectation. People came quickly. Family gathered like something important had just unfolded. I was not just a child. I was a position in the family structure.
First daughter. First granddaughter. First niece. First cousin.
Before I could understand language, I had already been assigned meaning.
I grew up between Nairobi and Sipili, but Sipili slowly became the place where my emotions settled. Not because I chose it, but because it held me differently.
Even as a baby, I did not respond to people equally. I cried when women carried me, but I became calm around men, except my mum, my grandma, and my greatgrandma. They did not need permission to hold me. I simply accepted them.
Looking back, I realize I was already learning something early: belonging would not be simple, but it would always exist somewhere if I kept moving toward it.
CHAPTER 1 — TWO HOMES AND ONE CHILD LEARNING TO EXIST BETWEEN THEM
My childhood did not belong to one house.
It belonged to movement.
My mum’s home was daytime life. It was routine, activity, and noise that made the day feel alive. It shaped my understanding of ordinary living.
My grandma’s home was night life. She was a teacher, and every evening she would arrive on her bicycle to take me. That bicycle was not just transport — it was transition. It marked the shift between worlds.
I lived between these two spaces like it was normal to belong in two emotional environments at once.
In 2012, my identity expanded when my sister Cheryl was born. I became an older sister, although I did not understand the weight of that role yet.
Childhood, at that time, was also unfiltered. Curiosity led me moments of complete misunderstanding of the world around me.
But that is what childhood is. It experiments without fear of consequence.
CHAPTER 2 — A NAME THAT BECAME A HOME
In 2013, I lived with my grandma while my sister stayed in Nairobi.
During this period, identity became something I actively felt rather than something I was told.
People used my father’s surname to call me, but I rejected it emotionally. It did not feel like me.
Instead, I created my own identity:
Nicole wa cucu.
Nicole of grandma.
That name was not rebellion. It was emotional accuracy. It reflected where I felt safe, understood, and emotionally anchored.
At that stage of life, identity was not a concept. It was attachment.
CHAPTER 3 — A SCHOOL THAT EXISTS ONLY IN PIECES
In 2014, I attended BEKI SCHOOL in Nairobi.
Memory from this period is incomplete. It exists in fragments rather than continuity.
One memory stands out clearly: using a potty instead of toilets at school. At the time, it did not feel unusual. It felt like part of the system I was in.
Looking back, this period represents transition more than stability. I was present, but not fully rooted.
CHAPTER 4 — SEPARATION AND THE FIRST FORM OF LOSS
In 2015, I was separated from my mum and taken back to Sipili with my sister.
We joined ADANED SHINING STAR ACADEMY, a family school owned by my grandpa.
This transition did not feel like movement. It felt like emotional displacement.
I missed my mum deeply, though I did not yet understand how to express that feeling fully.
My sister became my closest constant during this time.
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Between 2015 and 2017, imagination became a major part of my childhood. Alongside my sister and a childhood friend, I created entire pretend worlds where we played family life.
My great grandmother often told us to stop playing and focus on studying. At that time, we ignored her words. Later, I would realize how often childhood dismisses the wisdom it has not yet grown into.
CHAPTER 5 — RETURN, JOY, AND THE CURTAIN BETWEEN WORLDS
In 2016, my mum returned.
That return shifted everything.
Emotionally, it felt like light returning to a space that had adjusted to darkness.
My mum opened a shop in Sipili town. We moved in with her and my dad. The shop was directly connected to our bedroom, separated only by a curtain.
That curtain became symbolic of boundaries that were thin but important.
My sister and I often woke early and sneaked into the shop to eat sweets. It was not rebellion in the adult sense. It was childhood responding to opportunity.
During this time, my grandpa remained a constant presence. Weekends were spent at his home, and his visits from Nyahururu always came with Kinder Joy. He read bedtime stories, creating a sense of emotional safety that stayed with me.
CHAPTER 6 — FEAR AND THE FIRST UNDERSTANDING OF PROTECTION
In 2015, flying termites entered our home and caused panic.
My sister and I reacted instinctively by holding onto my grandpa. He remained calm and guided us away from fear, taking us to my grandma, who helped us settle.
This moment became one of my earliest understandings of safety — not as absence of danger, but as presence of people who know how to guide you through it.
CHAPTER 7 — LOSS THAT CHANGED THE SHAPE OF CHILDHOOD
In July 2018, my grandpa passed away.
The absence he left was not immediate noise. It was silence that slowly filled space.
In November 2018, my other grandpa, known as Guka wa strawberry, also passed away. He was known for his warmth and sweetness, and his memory carried emotional softness even after his passing.
That year marked the first time I understood that people do not remain physically present forever.
CHAPTER 8 — WHEN LIFE CONTINUES AFTER PAIN
In December 2018, my brother Kim was born.
His arrival shifted the family structure again. Even as a baby, he carried presence and strong personality.
Our greatgrandmother once warned that he would one day beat us. As children, my sister and I found this impossible to imagine. We laughed at the idea.
But growing up changes relationships in ways childhood cannot predict.
In 2020, COVID-19 disrupted normal life. Schools closed, and home became the center of everything. During this time, we built a home and moved in.
I also developed an allergy to eggs after eating too many, which became a permanent change.
CHAPTER 9 — LEARNING HOW TO EXIST IN PRACTICAL WAYS
In 2021, I began learning essential life skills such as washing clothes and cooking pancakes.
These were not symbolic lessons. They were survival skills that marked growing independence.
In Grade Six, I sat for KPSEA and met my best friend, Evon.
Later, I changed schools due to some conflict here and there, but continued my education while living with my mum and siblings.
CHAPTER 10 — LEADERSHIP BEFORE UNDERSTANDING LEADERSHIP
In 2024, I became school president at ADANED SHINING STAR ACADEMY and joined boarding school.
This role introduced responsibility in ways I was still growing into emotionally.
In 2025, I completed KJSEA and passed successfully. This marked a transition from childhood into structured responsibility.
CHAPTER 11 — HIGH SCHOOL AND BECOMING VISIBLE
In 2026, I joined high school.
This moment marked a major shift in identity within my family. I became one of the first to reach this level of education, and with it came expectation and visibility.
I was no longer just growing up.
I was becoming someone others could see a future through.
EPILOGUE — STILL BECOMING
My life has never moved in a straight line.
It has moved in arrivals, separations, returns, losses, and quiet moments of learning how to continue.
I am still becoming.
And I think I always will be.
AUTHOR BLURB
Chloe Nicole writes her memoir not as a finished story, but as a living one. Born in Nairobi and raised between Sipili and shifting family worlds, she tells a coming-of-age story shaped by movement, memory, and resilience. Nicole wa Cucu is a reflection on identity, childhood, loss, and the quiet ways people become who they are.
Nicole Chloe
