A quick Google search of North Harbour, St. Mary's Bay returns colorful images of a quaint Newfoundland community built on the shores of the cold North Atlantic. The single two lane road that hugs the shoreline is dotted by the homes of its 200 or so residents. Fishing stages, boats, and a community church sit reverently in the quietness of this village place. Up on a grassy hill in the seaview graveyard sits a row of five headstones, each telling the sorrowful story of a tragic day in June 1980, when Catherine and Edward Linehan lost five of their 10 children in a horrific house fire. If I Cry I'll Fill The Ocean is the true story of Catherine Linehan as told to her surviving daughter, author Ida Linehan Young.
They are the absence of light. Like shadows bruising where the sun cannot see, though the picture is bright on the canvas. Every second, every minute, every hour has that shadow. It moves and darkens and lightens but is there. The absence of five lives that she bore while the weight of motherhood remains, the weight of love for what is missing.
Written as a tribute to her mother's resilience as well as to acknowledge the unfathomable loss that her mother has endured, Ida Linehan Young portrays the life of a woman who has "traversed the uncharted swamps of grief". The "vignettes" are masterfully penned and presented in three distinct parts; The Before Compartment, The Chasm, and The After Compartment. Such thoughtful and well planned organization highlights the compartmentalized life her mother has been left to endure, evoking a depth of sadness within the reader that is difficult to contain. Told in her own mother's words, Linehan Young does an excellent job at portraying Catherine's "layered life" since the tragedy 40 years previously; happy and smiling on the outside but stricken with the loneliness of grief and the personal daily struggle of an event where the calendar is forever turned to June 19, 1980. Surrounded by a wonderfully supportive community, family and friends Catherine is left to navigate an unimaginable void and the memories of what could have been. The strength and courage of Catherine to push through each day despite the complex challenges of daily living are pitiful but instead the reader is left inspired and hopeful that she will eventually catch a break. Readers will laugh and will cry but will certainly feel great admiration and a deep respect for Catherine. As Linehan Young intended, this story does provide a sense of peace, hope and gratitude especially to those who, like Catherine, are left to bare "the weight of emptiness" and "suffocating absence". In some strange way, the Linehan story has an undeniable therapeutic quality that makes one feel as if any hardship can be tackled and overcome.
If I Cry I'll Fill the Ocean is Ida Linehan Young's sixth novel. Though this true story is a departure from her previous four novels of historical fiction, this story is very much a personal journey of discovery for the author. Having suffered her own trauma as a survivor of the fire as chronicled in No Turning Back: Surviving the Linehan Family Tragedy (2014), this is Catherine's story; a novel that ends the speculation of one woman's suffering and is an honourable tribute written by a daughter in an attempt to piece together and make sense of such an extraordinary mother. If I Cry I'll Fill the Ocean is a Flanker Press publication. Please check out other books by Ida Linehan Young by visiting the Flanker Press website.
She is not Queen Elizabeth, nor Joan of Arc, nor Amelia Earhart, nor will she be recorded in the annals of history. She is Catherine (Power) Linehan from North Harbour, St. Mary's Bay, and an inspiration to many whom she's encountered over the years.
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