Book Review: Here If You Need Me

Reviewed by First Church member Susan Duncan

Here if You Need Me: A True Story by Kate Braestrup, published in 2007, is a National Best Seller that is timeless in its restorative truth. Kate Braestrup firmly steps into the boots of Maine’s first Warden Chaplain with grace and humor after her loved one’s death in the line of duty. Her life as a single parent and work with Maine’s Fish and Wildlife Service is filled with uncertainty. She shares unique insights into her own, and others’, experience of grief. She models how to parent while on call 24/7 for emergencies in the community. Her descriptive memoir transports the reader to the most challenging moments our loved ones face.

The tender presence of the Almighty she brings as a Chaplain in uniform, armed with tissues, accompanies both wardens and loved ones alike. Their efforts are ingenious at times and hopeless at others as they rescue the living and recover the bodies of those who have walked on or frozen beneath an icy lake. Together they find that a person’s commitment and willingness to search is the miracle, not the outcome. She makes the burden light with her actionable prose and radio jargon. She finds exactly the right words to bring light and laughter for understanding and strength.

From the moment she presses the button for her husband’s crematoria to the moment her little girl sort’s out Jesus’ message to those living with disfiguring skin sores, the reader witnesses her durable faith. Where places in the Bible can seem far away, and the people in it seem to be historical haves and have-nots, Kate Braestrup writes the balance of the wilderness of Maine into the bones of the reader. When she kneels with a recovered soul, she compels others to remember the miraculous intention of Jesus and others who choose to race after lost sheep.