What's the meaning of "to connect the living dots" in the following context?

You’re probably wondering why I’ve sent you this letter. Since my
father died, I’ve made myself write something every day. I want to
make things, not just study them. Ideally, I write a poem, but on the
hard days I write correspondence. And today I wrote to you, to
connect the living dots between me, my mother, my father, and
yourself.

I know that "to connect the dots" means "to find or show the relationships between different things," but I wonder what it means in this context, especially given that we have the word "living" before "dots".