Austin Area Reading Circle
Reader's Guide
August 2008
Here If You Need Me
Kate Braestrup
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 footsteps and became a chaplain for the Maine Warden Service, which sets up search-and-rescue missions throughout the state...
- Kate is the one who is "Here if you need me." What are the strengths of the person who can simply put aside the need to control and/or fix life situations and simply be a presence of grace?
- What is the evolution of Kate's spiritual experience from "...the child of lapsed Lutherans, seasonal Episcopalians, and near atheists" to being a minister in the Unitarian Universalist church?
- How did Kate and her children experience and deal with the loss of Drew?
- What role does humor play in this memoir and in the lives of Kate and her children?
- There were a variety of reactions to death within this memoir. Did any of them resonate with your own experience of losing someone important in your life?
- How do you react to Kate's advice to her brother in the last chapter of this memoir?
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