I was maybe three years old. My throat hurt in that strange way it always did — a clicking, catching feeling I could not explain, only point to and cry about.
My mom never dismissed it. She would sit on the edge of my bed, open that little blue jar, and scoop out just enough Vicks with two fingers. The smell hit before she even touched me — sharp and cool and somehow already comforting, the way certain smells are tied to safety before you are old enough to understand why.
She had set up a humidifier in the corner of my room. It glowed — a soft, low light that turned the whole room into something warm and hazy, like the inside of a snow globe. The bubbling sound it made was slow and steady, almost like breathing itself. Cool mist drifted across the room, carrying that Vicks smell with it, filling every corner.
She would rub my chest in slow circles. Not rushed, not distracted — just present, just there. And she would breathe slowly, deliberately, the way you do when you are trying to teach someone something without using words. I did not know that is what she was doing at the time. I only knew that I started to breathe the same way she did. Slower. Deeper. Matching her.
"She would breathe slowly, deliberately — the way you do when you are trying to teach someone something without using words."
The glow of the humidifier. The cool mist. The smell of Vicks on my chest and in the air. Her hand, warm and steady. Her breath, slow and even. And then — nothing. Just sleep.
She passed when I was fifteen. There is no clean way to say that, no softer version of it. She was here, and then she was not, and the world kept moving in that cruel, indifferent way it does.
But she left me things. Not objects — feelings. The knowledge of what it means to be truly soothed. The memory of what it feels like when someone sits with you in the dark and breathes slowly until you do too. The understanding that comfort is not always words. Sometimes it is a smell, a sound, a hand on your chest, a light left on just low enough.
I think about her every time I sit with a baby who cannot settle. Every time I slow my own breathing in a dark nursery, hoping a little one will follow. Every time a parent tells me their child finally slept — really slept — and I can hear the relief in their voice.
I learned what a sleep environment could do from a blue jar and a glowing humidifier in a small bedroom. I learned what presence feels like from a woman who never once made me feel like my discomfort was an inconvenience.
I still smell it sometimes. Just a trace, out of nowhere — and for a moment, I am three years old again, and she is right there, and everything is going to be fine.
Sam
Certified Sleep Trainer · Certified Newborn Care Specialist · Registered Psychological Associate · PsyD Clinical Psychology (Candidate). Based in San Diego, available nationwide.