Aftermath

Aftermath

Linda McCabe

Linda McCabe, a mother of four, was born and reared in Dublin.  But this is her story of the devastating events that befell her family.  First, her husband died in a vicious and devastating murder in 1995.  At the time, her eldest boy was aged eleven, and her youngest only three years old.  How could she hold her family together?   However worse was to come, when she then lost her eldest son Edward to murder in 2006.

Can you imagine how you would cope with that?  For most of us, recovery from such a double tragedy would seem impossible.

'I remember a few weeks after I lost my son, I went out into the back garden ... I sat at the table there and said, "Right, God ... Show me how to live with the agony of this pain.  Tell me how to live now."  To dull the pain, I had thought of going back on drugs, but I knew that was not part of my life anymore.  I wanted to know how I was to survive this loss ... Into my head came Psalm 18:  "I hear your cries from the heavens above and I will answer them".

I sobbed and sobbed. That was my first experience of hearing God, and I just replied, "God, please help me.  Please, please help me.  I need your help."  And I want to say, I have experienced God ever since.  I absolutely love Him with all my heart.  And He is the only one who kept me going through the hardest part of my life.  I clung to my Bible and cried out to God to help me and my boys in our agony.  I honestly don't know how I got through that time.'

With her new found faith in God, Linda has defied expectations, and amazingly, she has finally regained her life.  But she still hopes and prays that she will recover further from the nightmare which she has lived through and from the ripples of its Aftermath.

'Linda is one of the most genuine, captivating storytellers that I have ever interviewed.  He story is true.'
Marian Finucane, late of RTÉ (Ireland's National Television & Radio Broadcaster)