Echoes: A New Year's Eve Memoir

It sounded like war. It sounded like a passing train. It sounded like popcorn. Yet, in a darkened room, a humming humidifier and a creaky rocker muted the explosions of light bursting in the new year. 

The woman whose tired legs pumped the chair to and fro could be called both a "young mother" and an "old mother". The oldest of her four boys attended the lowest grade in the public schools making her a mother of small children, a recent parent. However, the silver strands streaking her hair hinted that the approaching decade would kick off her years on the "other side" of the hill. She wrinkled a smirk as she recalled that moment an unknowing stranger blundered, "Are you the mom or the grandma?" 

The mom chuckled at the memory and others that followed. While tenderly pecking a kiss on her infant's crown, she reminisced over New Year's Eves of the past. Those included intimate gatherings at her sister's home, where family flocked for fun. As the single, "favorite" aunt, she enjoyed the time with her kidlings (her made-up, more concise word for nieces and nephews). Usually everyone played the recently-received Christmas gifts of board games and card games, filled up on foods that tipped the scales in favor of sugars and fats, and drank from clinking goblets of sparkling cider.

Other times she had gotten together with small groups of pals, to ring in the New Year by playing games or watching movies. As a young teen she was more apt to wedge a throw pillow in between herself and the guy sitting at her side, so as not to touch a boy. The years that followed saw her forlornly hugging those pillows, wishing and hoping instead for a special young man at her side! Sometimes she and her friends would pause a movie a minute or so before midnight in order to count down together and wish everyone happiness, only then to promptly glue themselves back to the screen. 

Some years warranted larger celebrations, like the eve of the new millennium, when everyone's tech was supposed to have glitched because they feared 19-something datestamps couldn't handle turning to 2000. That year she had been on the college committee to plan the New Year's Eve dance. She and her committee partner planned an elaborate netting of balloons to open and release onto the dance floor at the stroke of midnight. Alas it failed! Fortunately a tall young man or two literally jumped in to save the moment; they grasped and yanked down the defective strings allowing the balloons to float into the hands of the awaiting crowd.

She sighed over the memories and her babe sighed in his sleep as she moved him into his crib. Daddy was ritually reading the older three boys to sleep in the other room. The house grew quiet even as the noise rumbled on outdoors. In the stillness, Mommy's day echoed back in her ears. Dishes clattered, a dryer door screeched, and her children's voices chattered, laughed and whined. 

The lunch date with her husband earlier in the day had certainly been a nice reprieve from the whining. Since the couple counted spending time alone together as a date, a trip to Costco wasn't out of the question. (They were alone, plus one six-month-old tagging along, to be a bit more accurate!) Food cart samples became appetizers in their Costco dining experience and, while strolling the aisles, they greeted a few familiar faces. 

As they swapped New Years Eve plans with their friends, she began to feel something stir inside. One gal, with her husband and kids, planned to meet up for food and games at the wife's sister's home. Another friend planned to gather with more aquaintences at one of their homes, with barbequed brisket on the menu. 

The stirring she felt over hearing her friends' plans wasn't quite a feeling of jealousy, because she was happy to boast that she had no plans herself of ringing in the new year, but instead hoped to get lots of sleep. The stirring was more a feeling of nostalgia, and it followed her through the remaining tasks of the day and into the rocking chair with her baby that evening. While the fireworks burst in the sky, the echoes of the day beat on.

It sounded like war. The whining and the fighting amongst the boys that day, sometimes involving the mom, as she yelled, "No yelling!" Or like the actual wars that only the parents have seen on screen and hopefully the innocent lads would never witness.

It sounded like a passing train, like the actual train rumbling not too far from their home, close enough to draw an eye to the back window whenever it passed. Or the toy trains the boys got for Christmas, with their remote controls and buttons for whistles and chugging. 

It sounded like popcorn that they didn't pop to string on their Christmas tree that season, because Mom knew it would be less of a garland and more like snow sprinkled around the house by well-intentioned little fingers. Or like the popcorn in the tins Dad got from the after-Christmas sale at Walmart at half of the original price.

Occasionally her nostalgia threatened jealousy as her mind glanced back to carefree eves, and forward again to the current one, where others' plans sounded more exciting than her own. Sometimes her thoughts collided like the crashing of the firework finale she could hear but couldn't see. Her children were tucked and asleep, aloof to the war, the train, the popcorn. She hadn't meant to be awake during the final moments of the year, but her trip down memory lane kept her up, as did her realization of her trip she was currently on down a new lane, of memories yet to be made with her wonderful husband and sweet children.

The last of the fireworks faded into the crisp winter night and, with a deep intake of breath, the echoes and the nostalgia faded into contentment.