The Pillowcases

Teddy resting on my pillowcases. The top one is from this Christmas, the bottom is my Beatrice Potter pillow case.

There are not many things as precious as the home sewn pillowcases I received for Christmas this year, except the ones I have received in the past. As often as my mom could, when she visited me, we would go to a local fabric shop. She was a fabric addict, she loved all things sewing. On one of our fabric excursions last year, I found some sweet flannel Beatrice Potter material, at the Gloversville Sewing Center. Mom insisted on buying it and making me a set of pillowcases. Through the years she has given myself and my sons, home made (and sometimes embroidered) pillowcases as gifts.
On to to my story..
For you to understand the significance of this, you need to know that my sister and mom had gone for years without much contact.

Forward to Christmas Eve this year.
My sister handed me her gift. I opened it to find a set of beautiful, hand made pillowcases.
"You don't know about mom and her pillowcases, do you?" I asked. She looked at me with a puzzled expression. "Oh my, you don't!" I knew she had been making pillowcases as gifts, because she had shown me the other day, the set she was making for my brother. I sort of kept the thought of mom's pillowcases in the back of my mind, and to myself at that time.
When I saw my sister, who knew nothing about mom's love of making and giving these, had made me a set also..I had to bring it up.
I took her upstairs to my bedroom and showed her the Beatrice Potter pillowcases.
It was the same sewing pattern my sis had downloaded a week earlier. Another odd thing, my sister hasn't sewn in years..
Well, I guess this was coincidence enough, but there is more.
My brother lives in Texas, and received his gift of pillowcases, from my sister this Wednesday, which was also my sisters birthday. That day he called and left her a detailed message. He told her how years ago my mom had bought material with antique cars on it and was going to make him pillowcase from it. He never received those pillowcases with cars on them, until my sister unknowingly went to the same sewing shop, bought material with cars printed on it, made the pillowcases and then sent them to my brother.
Was that my mom's way of giving us gifts this year, as we tried to cope with our first Christmas since she died.
As I write this, I can feel the hair standing on my head. I have read that when that happens it is because of a spirit being near. I love you mom, and thank you for the pillowcases.