My son was sweet enough to place one of my grandmother’s needlepoint pillows on our bed when we visited recently.  My grandmother was a swift and precise knitter. She could, and did, sew anything she had a pattern for and many things she didn’t. Then she discovered needlepointing. She caught the “bug” big time and was utterly captivated by the possibilities.

Our first morning in town, my son brought eleven-month-old Leah in to snuggle with us. Leah sat beside me and began patting the pillow my grandmother Estelle made decades before her Dada was born. Gently, I scratched it so Leah could hear the contact sound and then I turned the pillow over so she could stroke its smooth green velvet back.  Leah smiled and patted the velvet before turning the pillow over again. Scritch, scratch, scritch scratch. 

I watched Leah trace her tiny fingers over the pillow’s nubby surface. Across time and space my granddaughter was connecting hand to hand, generation to generation with her great-great grandmother. Amen.