Here If You Need Me by Kate Braestrup (2008)

If you’re looking for a gift for someone who has recently experienced a significant loss, I highly recommend this 2008 nonfiction book. It’s one of my favorites. And it’s not just for times of loss, though it’s therapeutic in that respect. I’ve re-read it a few times, but listening to the author read it on audiotape my last go-round deepened my experience with a book that explores the topics of love, loss, faith, motherhood, and service.
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Braestrup is candid, sometimes surprisingly so, when sharing details about the heartbreaking situations she’s endured. Her writing is beautiful in its poignant simplicity. She’s often insightful in ways so subtle you grasp her meaning two sentences after the one that zinged you simultaneously in the heart and head. She’s a master at going off on what seems like a superfluous tangent…until you realize it’s not.
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The meaning of the title becomes clear when she explains, “I’m not really here to keep you from freaking out. I’m here to be with you while you freak out, or grieve or laugh or suffer or sing. It is a ministry of presence. It is showing up with a loving heart.”
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Throughout the book, Braestrup shares her story of how she fulfilled her husband’s dream to become a Unitarian minister, which she does with the Maine Game Warden Service. He was killed in the line of duty as a Maine State Trooper, leaving her to raise their four children.
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Remarkably, she finds the strength to move forward in her desire to honor her husband’s legacy of service and strength by fulfilling the dream he never will.
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What’s admirable and inspiring about Braestrup is her strong character, calm assuredness, lack of pretension and laser focus on doing the next right thing in such difficult circumstances. I’m reminded of DH Lawrence’s quote: “I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.“
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The stories she shares about her own life and the lives of the people she helps are often sad enough to make you cry but, instead, they’re remarkably life-affirming. Her musings on the nature of love, purpose and, ultimately, presence inspire you to show up better in your own life.