Here If You Need Me

Starred review from April 23, 2007
I
t may take ingenuity to interest browsers in a memoir by a middle-aged mother who, 11 years ago, was suddenly widowed, then became a Unitarian-Universalist minister, and now works as chaplain to game wardens in Maine. But good memoir writing does not depend on celebrity or adventure—who’d have thought that a self-confessed recovering neurotic like Anne Lamott or a monastically inclined poet like Kathleen Norris would make it big?—and Braestrup’s insightful essays are extraordinarily well written, mingling elements of police procedural and touching love story with trenchant observations about life and death. Alert to comic detail even in grisly circumstances (bears, for example, like to play ball with human skulls), she tells stories of lost children, a suicide, drunken accidents and a murder, always with compassion and a concern for the big questions inescapably provoked by tragic events. “Why did Dad die?” her children ask, and her response describes not only her theology but also her reason for being a chaplain: “Nowhere in scripture does it say 'God is a car accident’ or 'God is death.’ God is justice and kindness, mercy, and always—always—love. So if you want to know where God is in this or in anything, look for love.”

April 15, 2007
Braestrup ("Onion") inherited her state trooper husband's life story when he died in a highway accident, as well as his dream of becoming a Unitarian minister. She herself became one, working as a chaplain for the Maine Game Warden Service, which conducts search-and-rescue operations when people go missing in the wilderness. She weaves many strands into her storyher grief, her husband, her four children, seminary school, her job as chaplain, and stories from the field working with the wardens against a backdrop of the Maine outdoors. She has a simple but deep faith: God is love. Hers is a practical theology rooted in service to others, and her presence is a comfort to both the wardens and the families of the people for whom she searches during times of tragedy and loss. Missing children and hikers; victims of hunting, boating, and ice accidents; crime and suicide victims; and all those who search for themthese are the stories told, stories in which hope and grief are two sides of the same coin, dependent on the outcome. Moving, clever, and funny; highly recommended for all public libraries.Nancy Almand, Mesa Coll. Lib., San Diego

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2007
Braestrup was an accidental chaplain. Her husband, Drew, a Maine state trooper, died in a car accident at a time when he was considering a second career as an ordained minister. After her shock subsided, Braestrup decided to follow in his footstepsand became a chaplain for the Maine Warden Service, which sets up search-and-rescue missions throughout the state.Practical, unsentimental, straightforward, she is the kind of person who considers a book entitled Death to Dust: What Happens to Dead Bodies? a romantic gift (Drews to her on her thirty-first birthday). She, not the mortician, bathed and dressed Drews body. Shewitnessed its cremation. And, rather anomalously, she, a middle-aged mother of four, works mostly with young men. Herown remarkable storyencompasses thoseof the men and women who work alongside her, incorporating many touching anecdotes, none more moving than that of the state police detective, a breast-feeding mother whose last name is Love, who arrests a sexual predator for a young womans murder. A poignant, funny book by a sympathetic, likable, immensely appealing figure.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)