Personal Shrine - Andrew Taylor

My shrine is for my grandfather, or as I called him my Granddaddy. The way I see him he was a giant of a man. Not in physical stature but in the life he lived. His life was full of stories that I feel I could never live up to. For instance the story of how he, while living as a dirt poor farmer in Pine Mountain GA, married my Grandmother (whom I call Omie), a 100% Dutch woman from the Netherlands. Or how he caught a criminal fleeing from the police by pretending he had a gun in his pocket. These stories are fantastical and I'm sure have been embellished over the years, but they nonetheless reflect the amazing life my Granddaddy lived. In his later years he existed primarily as a family man, serving as the patriarch of my family. When I was creating my shrine to him I choose to focus on this part of his life, the part where all of my personal memories of/with him exist.

 I put the most recent picture I could find of him in the center of the poster to reflect the shrine's focus on his later years. In the bottom center I taped a chess piece to the board to represent the numerous times we played chess together. Practically all the stories he ever told me and all the lessons he ever taught me were dictated throughout the duration of a chess game. In the bottom left corner I placed a small tree branch with fresh leaves yet to turn brown. This twig represents the love of nature that he imparted on me. Unfortunately in his later years he was mostly unable to enjoy nature with me, but my appreciation for mother nature is absolutely something I attribute to him. In the bottom right I placed a screwdriver to represent his "Mr. fix it" nature. Granddaddy was always someone I could rely on to fix my problems, sometimes quite literally with a screwdriver and other times by pulling strings to ensure as best he could that everything worked out for his grandchildren. Finally, in the top center I placed a pill bottle to represent his dying years. Granddaddy was in and out of sickness practically my entire life. It was only this past year when my family was watching old family videos from before I could speak that I first heard what his real voice sounded like. For as long as I could remember Granddaddy had a quiet, raspy voice due to this various ailments. When I watched the old home videos of him he honestly sounded like a completely different person.