Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. – James 1:17

I have to give Mother’s Day kudos to our most excellent son-in-law Craig for his thoughtful and imaginative gift to our daughter, Naomi, this past Sunday.

So without any suspense, here it is. It’s the classic paper cutout silhouette featuring their three beautiful children.

Of course I will be the first to say that “you can’t beat the originals.” Our Orlando grands – David, Beks and Geoffrey – are (as all grandparents say) the most beautiful children in the entire world.

But this silhouette kind of stopped me in my tracks. What is is about such a simple form that managed to grab me so strongly?

I think it is because – and this is very much a comment about how both our brains and our emotions work – all we need is an outline, or a clue, and our deeper consciousness fills in the remainder of the details.

This is why, back in Tampa, when I used to write 500-word articles about someone’s life and contribution to the community (that’s all the space the Tribune would give), the subjects or their friends would invariably contact me after it published and say something like, “You didn’t miss a thing!” or “Your feature got it so right, there wasn’t anything else you could have said…”

The fact, of course, is that I left out tons of stuff. The key is to recognize – like the line of a forehead or angle of the nose on a silhouette – what illustrates the essential story and what does not.

My interviews typically generated a good 3,000 words of useable copy and I had to cut and slice and summarize no end. But if you cut the silhouette properly then the mind – the soul – fills in the rest of the details automatically and you have a complete picture.

A few years ago I flew to England for my cousin Linda’s funeral. She was only in her forties and the first of her generation to pass. Her brother Peter was told he needed to limit her eulogy to seven minutes or less.

“That’s impossible,” Peter told me.

“Not at all,” I responded; “you have more than enough time. Your task is to draw the outline, then everyone listening will subconsciously fill in the color and the shading and the details from their own collective experience. Afterwards they will tell you you didn’t miss a thing.”

And that is exactly what happened.

So when I see a silhouette of my grandchildren I get the whole picture. Plus the noise, and the motion, and the hugs, and the fun, and the tears, and the silliness, and the full-on unfiltered life that hits you head-on like a college football team bursting through the banner at the start of the game.

Nice one, Craig. It really is all there, you didn’t miss a thing. – DEREK