Dad Was a Carpenter: A Father, a Son, and the Blueprints for a Meaningful Life
Books / Hardcover
Books › Biography & Autobiography › Literary
ISBN: 0062517635 / Publisher: HarperSanFrancisco, May 2001
The author describes how, several months after his father's death, he began sorting through years of accumulated belongings that gave him a new understanding of his relationship with his late father, his father's love and courage, and his own loss.
Read More
Returning home, Kenny Kemp raised the heavy garage door and began going through forty years of his father's accumulated materials and belongings. It was four months after his father's death from Lou Gehrig's disease.As Kenny sorted and cleaned, a greater understanding of his loss slowly came to him. Symbols of his father's love, strength, and quiet courage emerged from old mayonnaise jars full of straightened nails; overstuffed, weathered workbench drawers; time-tested tools; and a versatile thirty-year-old piece of plywood. Precious relics, each telling in silent eloquence a story about the greatness of a man who had the gift to see something "new and useful inside something old and worn."Beautifully written, this poignant remembrance provides a unique perspective on life's fleeting moments and disregarded details. Each chapter begins with one of his father's maxims, the "blueprints for a meaningful life." Dad Was a Carpenter is a remarkable book that asks us to think about all our relationships in a different way. It is a message that families everywhere will cherish for years to come.
Read Less