When I was growing up, almost every child I knew would proclaim Christmas or Easter as their favorite holiday. Perhaps this was because they were bound and determined to lock eyes with “Santa”, or find everything that they wanted underneath of the Christmas tree. Maybe they loved the colorful eggs and all that yummy Easter candy. However, for me that was not the case. My favorite holiday was, and still is to this day, New Years Eve’. It was not that I didn’t like getting spoiled by “Santa” or biting in to a chocolate bunny, but as a child I preferred to spend time with my favorite person in the world, my nana. She meant the world to me when I was a little girl, and whenever I would see her or hear her voice, my eyes would light up like a full moon in a dark night sky.
Although I have a lot of memories from the New Year’s Eve’s that I have celebrated with Nan, there is one in particular I know I will never forget. It was the year that we entered the year 2000. My nana and my Aunt Caroline had come over to spend the holiday with my mother, my mother’s wife (yes, I have a nontraditional family), and me.
We all danced around the living room, singing to one another, while wearing silly hats, colorful beads, and funky glasses that were too big for our heads. Each of the adults took turns taking my hands and spinning me around in circles. I was six at the time and loved to shake my toosh, pretend to be Britney Spears, and get spun around like I was on a merry -go- round. Nana took my tiny hands and put them into her palms and began to move her arms in a backwards-forwards motion; then she would release one of my hands and twirl me into a little circle. I would shake my toosh once or twice and then begin to run in circles around everyone. My mom would try to grab me and say things like, “Tator-tot. you’re gonna drive Nana nuts going hog wild like that!”.
I would put my lips together and scrunch up my nose along with the rest of me face, then giggle and run away from my mother. The evening soon began to drag on, so I climbed my way into my nana’s soft lap. She wasn’t a big woman, so I didn’t have to struggle much to get situated. However, I didn’t stay put for long.
“OW! OW! OW!” I began to whimper and ruch around in her lap.
“Taylor Marie, what in God’s name are you doing?”
“My hynie - it’s itchy, Nan! Make it stooooop!”
My little legs sprung off of my nanas lap like a jack -in- the -box, and I began to rub against the wall, the large grey television stand, even the table where we had our beverages and snacks stacked! Everyone began to laugh, thinking I was trying to put on an act. Before they could believe their eyes, I was sprawled out across the living room floor, wiggling around like a fish without water.
“Waaaaaah!” Rapid tears began to flow out of my eyes like they belonged to the kitchen faucet.
“Oh my!” my nana said, taking me by the wrist and pulling me in close to her.
She slowly unzipped my little Barbie feety pajamas to find little red bumps that were darker than the red of my hair all across my back, neck, shoulders, arms, even my toosh! Before I knew it, everyone was examining my butt, along with the rest of my body, trying to figure out how I had gotten the chicken pox when I had been vaccinated. My mom darted up the stairs to get the calamine lotion, but returned with no pity, just laughs. I continued to whine and whimper and attempt to scratch open the lumps for a majority of the night. My nana was the only one who felt any amount of sympathy for my little red blotchy body. All night long she continued to rub calamine lotion on my itchy little body until eventually the itching came to an ease, and I fell asleep wrapped in her arms.
Sometime later on in the night, after the ball had dropped, and it was officially the year 2000, I opened my eyes and stared at my nana while she slept. Although the itching was back, and I wanted her to wake up to fix it, I liked to look at her because she was my favorite person in the world, and I always wanted to be close to her. I thought I could lay there forever, and she would protect me from the world, like she had protected me from so many of the dark, terrible things that shouldn’t have happened in my life. She was my superhero that New Year’s Eve’ and continues to be my superhero today. My nana is one of my many gaurdian angels.