Abstract
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.