Big Boy

"Big Boy" is a stunning photograph of a peacock with its feathers fully spread in a breathtaking courtship display. The vibrant tail feathers form a wide fan filled with colorful "eye" patterns in shades of green, blue, yellow, and gold. The peacock's body is a deep, jewel-toned blue with green accents near the neck — standing proudly at the center of it all. It is a photograph that captures beauty, elegance, and the sheer wonder of the natural world.

The image is credited to award-winning photographers Debra & Dave Vanderlaan of Celebrate Life Gallery. After 30 years in the floral and plant nursery business, Debra and Dave moved into full-time photography — bringing with them a deep love of animals, nature, color, and dramatic composition. Their work has been displayed in galleries and museums across the country, including the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.

The vibrancy of the colors is what first captured my interest in completing this 1,000-piece puzzle. I started it over ten years ago — one of my quiet, relaxing activities after a stressful day at work. The complexity of the pieces, so similar in shape and pattern, made it wonderfully challenging. I spent several months working on it.

One summer, my brother James came to visit from Phoenix, Arizona — staying, as he always did, for two months. He found the same peace and joy in puzzles that I did, and he began working on Big Boy daily, for hours at a time. He completed it in a month. I became a little irritable with him — he had tackled the beautiful blue body of the peacock, the section I had been most looking forward to finishing myself. But I was also elated that he had seen it through.

Working together to transfer the finished puzzle to the mounting board, I explained the need for care and patience. But James, being James, flipped it too fast — and all one thousand pieces fell apart. We were both crushed. I bagged the pieces carefully, keeping sections together in separate zip-lock bags, and put it away to complete another day. That was the last puzzle James ever worked on.

In the years that followed, James became ill. He suffered a stroke, and on December 18, 2018, he passed away. After his passing, I would sometimes pull out the Big Boy — but I always became too sad, knowing he had once held those pieces, and I would put it away again.

In October 2025, with a stronger spirit, I opened it and began again. As I separated the pieces, the memory of James working on this puzzle brought laughter and joy back to my heart. It took a while to find my strategy — the similarity of the pieces made it as challenging as ever. But I began to notice things I hadn't seen before: the different shapes of the eye patterns, the three directions they face — left, straight, right — and one eyeball, somewhere in the puzzle, facing the wrong way entirely. (Can you find it?)

I completed the Big Boy in December 2025 — exactly seven years after the death of my beloved brother, and ten years after the puzzle first fell apart. It is framed now, and it hangs as a tribute to James, to patience, and to the quiet joy of finishing what you started.