If I Cry I’ll Fill The Ocean
In a life layered by tragedy and loss, Catherine Linehan’s ingrained response is to put one foot in front of the other, and not succumb to grief.
For the mother of ten children, five of whom perish in a house fire, this means “making some kind of best” out of the rest of her life.
If I Cry, I’ll Fill the Ocean is the true story of how tears of cleansing and forgiveness are sacrificed to keep memories alive, and sanity in reach. This kind of courage only exists in the hearts and souls of those who have endured the unendurable.
Set in North Harbour, Newfoundland, this is one woman’s true story of fortitude and love.
“Them that’s gone through it are them that knows.”
No Turning Back: Surviving the Linehan Family Tragedy
On a June night in 1980, the Linehan household in North Harbour went up in flames. In moments the fire consumed the family's ordinary, loving lives and innocent, human faith that life would always be as it was. Ida, the middle of three girls and one of ten siblings, survived the blaze only to endure weeks and months of treatment and recovery. Her only goal is to spare her family more pain, and she quietly promises herself never to quit and never to complain. She only wants life to be normal, but is that the same as being healed? In straightforward prose and an open-hearted manner, Ida Linehan paints a series of vivid, haunting pictures as she recounts a remarkable story.