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Average Customer Rating:

Vivid, moving memoir

Customer Rating:

Kate Braestrup has every reason to be mad at God. Her husband, a Maine State Trooper, was killed in a car accident, leaving her widowed with four young children. Instead, she took the opposite tack and went to seminary, eventually finding herself as chaplain to the Maine Fish and Game Wardens, accompanying officers throughout the state as they patrol remote areas, arrange search and rescue efforts, and aid lost and injured hikers. Far from being a "come to Jesus" tale of renewed spirituality, this book shares Braestrup's own struggles with spirituality (I loved the phrase, "I'm religious but not particularly spiritual.") and the dogmatism of her required courses, at the same time sharing a glimpse into the grace and beauty of the wilderness of the Northeast. Easy to read, moving, enthralling, this book made me respect these men and women in a whole new way.

Warm, funny, thoughtful

Customer Rating:

I first picked up this book because I, too, am a widow. I was hoping for insight on someone else's life by hearing their story. This isn't the story of widowhood, it is the story of strength, love and grace. I found this to be a truly moving book about a "plucky widow" who found she had a heart to share and share she does by becoming a chaplain to the Maine Warden Service. It inspires me to be a better person and to see the good around me. Well written, full of stories, reflections and events I found it hard to put down and was sorry to come to the end. I hope she will someday write about her own personal journey in greater depth.

Here If You Need Me	Customer Rating:
Outstanding book. It was hard to put it down until I had finished reading it. Unlike any other book I've read. The author wrote ths book with her heart.

wisdom on paper	Customer Rating:
one of the best memoirs i've read in years and it's my job to read them. this is an act of love. i felt the leaves crunch beneath my feet as kate took me into the wilderness, both internal and external. beautiful. -lauren elise daniels, prose editor

A memoir in the truest sense of the word

Customer Rating:

A memoir is a written account of the events that have been observed by someone throughout their life; an autobiography is the story of a person's life as written by that person. Most "memoirs" these days are really autobiographies. But in Here If You Need Me, Kate Braestrup makes sure that the star is her colleagues, her "clients," her state, and the God she shares with all of them. Surrounded by death, accidents, and lost children, Braestrup reveals that an amazing kind of grace can come with witnessing trauma on a daily basis. She lives on the turn of a dime in others' lives, where loved ones don't come home and lives end. Somehow, though, it isn't sad. It's beautiful and thoughtful and poignant and funny, and though you may cry, you feel somehow blessed after reading it. Braestrup clearly loves her job, which more than anything consists of just "being there" for others in some of their most trying moments. The title couldn't be more appropriate. I'm being pretty saccharine about this book. But in a world where "minister" usually gets attached to political agendas, Braestrup is a reassuring figure, there only to make the transition easier, no matter what kind of transition it is. Be warned--it may move you so much that by turns you will want to either become a Unitarian Universalist minister or move to Maine.