Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Furnishing Eternity: A Father, a Son, a Coffin, and a Measure of Life
    Furnishing Eternity: A Father, a Son, a Coffin, and a Measure of Life
    Furnishing Eternity: A Father, a Son, a Coffin, and a Measure of Life
    Audiobook6 hours

    Furnishing Eternity: A Father, a Son, a Coffin, and a Measure of Life

    Written by David Giffels

    Narrated by Eric Michael Summerer

    4.5/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    David Giffels grew up fascinated by his father's dusty, tool-strewn workshop and the countless creations-both practical and fantastical-it inspired. So when he enlisted his eighty-one-year-old dad for the unusual project of building a casket, he thought of it mostly as a way to learn and to spend time together. Life had other plans.

    The unexpected death of his mother and, a year later, of his best friend, coupled with turning fifty and the growing realization that his father won't always be around for such offbeat adventures, leads to a harsh confrontation with mortality and loss.

    In this soulful, panoramic memoir and father-son story, Giffels confronts some of the hardest questions common people face with wisdom and humor, unraveling the absence and presence of the people who define us and taking a true measure of life. Furnishing Eternity is the story of a year brought down by loss, a family finding hope in its roots, and the unexpected epiphanies to be found in the things we build. Heartfelt, unvarnished, and piercing with insight, this powerful memoir is Giffels' most intimate exploration of the values and traditions that illuminate the Midwest.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateJan 2, 2018
    ISBN9781681689159
    Author

    David Giffels

    David Giffels is the author of The Hard Way on Purpose: Essays and Dispatches From the Rust Belt, nominated for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, the memoir All the Way Home, winner of the Ohioana Book Award, and Furnishing Eternity. His writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic.com, Parade, the Wall Street Journal, Esquire.com, Grantland.com, Redbook, and many other publications. He also was a writer for the MTV series Beavis and Butt-Head. He is an associate professor of English at the University of Akron, where he teaches creative nonfiction in the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts Program.

    Related to Furnishing Eternity

    Related audiobooks

    Relationships For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      See The Light

      Dec 4, 2019

      My Geiger counter leaps from zero to .003 in a heartbeat. “It’s OK!” our guide, Helen, assures me. “This is a very low level of radiation!”The Geiger counters are handed out to the members of my tour and activated one by one. Helen assures us of the

      6 min read

    • Article

      Put Down the Controller: Five Novels About Video Games

      Jul 31, 2017

      The ways that books and video games can tell us stories aren’t as different as I used to think. Both insist upon our willingness to escape from the workaday world in order to step into one built word by word or bit by bit by somebody else. The post P

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Reader

      May 1, 2020

      The Reader
      5 min read

    • Article

      Top 10 Books

      Nov 18, 2022

      Top 10 Books
      1 min read

    • Article

      The Truth About Lie Detectors

      Apr 25, 2022

      You’ve seen polygraph tests a thousand times on crime dramas and daytime TV: a stubborn suspect gets hooked to the machine and their darkest secrets come spilling out, etched forever onto a roll of paper. Its results are often presented as fact, as b

      3 min read

    • Article

      Speedboat

      Mar 24, 2022

      Nobody died that year. Nobody prospered. There were no births or marriages. Seventeen reverent satires were written – disrupting a cliché and, presumably, creating a genre. That was a dream, of course, but many of the most important things, I fi nd,

      14 min read

    • Article

      Unlearnable Lessons on My Father’s Deathbed

      Mar 21, 2017

      I was at my father’s side much of the time in his final weeks, a witness to both the gifts and miseries of being near death. Nurses came and went, patient, long-suffering. They sat beside him for hours at a time, dousing spongy lollipops in water and

      5 min read

    • Article

      Penny From Heaven

      Feb 27, 2020

      Penny From Heaven
      5 min read

    • Article

      Rooted

      May 10, 2019

      Rooted
      9 min read

    • Article

      Table Talk

      Jun 1, 2018

      Table Talk
      9 min read

    • Article

      A Garden In The Desert

      Sep 20, 2021

      A Garden In The Desert
      10 min read

    • Article

      Tuskers

      Jul 1, 2018

      Tuskers
      9 min read

    • Article

      Three Poems

      Nov 1, 2020

      1 The doctor makes a curving incision in the left topback of my skull andlifts the cap— “What areaam I here to work on?” But Ijust want to wish his son a Happy Birthday—It had been my aim, the reason I’dwalked right into this Doctor dream—In the morn

      11 min read

    • Article

      Six Poems

      Feb 28, 2023

      Dear C, At first Virgil’s poem is quite dull; equivocalnames of products at The Container Store: Elfa White Medium Drawer, Mesh NarrowRolling Cart (Medium Solution), Narrow Classic Mesh Box and the number of pirouetting starseach product attained. An

      5 min read

    • Article

      The Eternal Adventure

      Jun 29, 2021

      The Eternal Adventure
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Rear Old Time

      May 9, 2021

      A Rear Old Time
      7 min read

    • Article

      Table Talk

      Sep 1, 2022

      Table Talk
      10 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jul 1, 2022

      After centuries of deferralto the white sky cloud cover God, who kept me on orange alert,babbling for mercies that were batted away sloppilylike dustballs in the wake of a sock, I turned to the Divine Creatrix,who built the short night, I was convinc

      2 min read

    • Article

      On the Road

      Nov 16, 2020

      On the Road
      17 min read

    • Article

      HUNTING With The Ellements…

      Sep 13, 2021

      HUNTING With The Ellements…
      19 min read

    • Article

      Body Language

      Aug 14, 2019

      Body Language
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Furnishing Eternity

    4.5/5

    8 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      David Giffels brings together the physical world of woodworking with the spiritual world of family, friendship and loss. He sets out to build a coffin for himself under The mentorship of his father,a master woodworker. Throughout the time it takes him to design, build, and finish the coffin, we learn about Giffels own family history growing up in Akron in the 70s and 80s, his friendships, and interests in art and music. He connects the coffin through all of his stories into things that matter most in his life. It’s not a sad book. It’s a hopeful one. Quoting Robert Frost summing up all that he’s learned in life, “It goes on.” He’s created something for himself, given to others in his family,and given the reader a sincerer, poignant story that should resonate with everyone.