My grandmother, Bertha, didn’t just put you to bed. She installed you.
Going to sleep in her house wasn’t a casual event; it was a medical and religious procedure. I remember lying in that back room, the air thick enough to chew on. It smelled of mothballs—that sharp, chemical scent of old things being preserved against the rot of the world. It drifted out of her closet like a fog, coating everything in a layer of ancient protection.
She would come in, this little Spanish force of nature, and the ritual would begin.
First, the Vicks VapoRub. She didn’t believe in subtle application. She didn’t just rub a little on your chest. No. She would dip her finger into that blue jar, scoop out a glob of the stinging, medicated jelly, and shove it right up my nose.
Squelch.
It cleared your sinuses, your brain, and probably your past life. You lay there, eyes watering, breathing in 100% pure menthol fire, while she muttered prayers in Spanish.
Then came the Tuck.
She pulled the heavy blankets up to my chin. And then she tucked them in under the mattress so tight, so violently secure, that I was essentially in a soft, woolen straightjacket. I couldn’t wiggle. I couldn’t get my hands out. I was swaddled like a mummy, pinned to the bed by the sheer weight of her affection.
I’d lie there, paralyzed and medicated, staring up at the wall. And staring back down at me was the Crucifix. Wood and blue plaster. A sad, suffering Jesus hanging right over my head, ensuring that even my dreams were supervised.
But the real protection wasn’t on the wall. It was on her.
Bertha was armored in faith. Literally. She had Saint pendants—little gold and silver medals of St. Christopher, St. Jude, the Virgin Mary—safety-pinned to everything she owned. She pinned them to her pillows. She pinned them to the curtains. And, most impressively, she pinned them to her bra.
She walked around with a holy arsenal rattling against her chest, a jingle-jangle of divine intervention protecting her heart.
And then, just when the Vicks was starting to burn and Jesus was starting to look a little too judgmental, the softness would come.
In the corner of the room, there was a cage. And inside, a bright yellow canary.
This woman, who chased us with brooms and shoved Vicks up our noses, she would stand by that cage. And she would sing.
Not a hymn. Not a prayer. Just a quiet, high, trilling song, whistling back and forth with the bird. A private conversation between two captive creatures.
I’d watch her from my straightjacket, the smell of mothballs and Vicks filling the room, the blue crucifix watching over us, the saints rattling on her chest.
And I felt safe.
I felt like nothing in the world—not my mother’s rage, not the bullies, not the chaos of 1970s Whittier—could ever get through that door. I was preserved. I was medicated. I was watched over.
It was weird. It was overwhelming.
And God, what I wouldn’t give to be tucked in that tight one more time.
