Mercy is an act of forgiveness. This was a beautiful story of one’s woman quest to receive forgiveness for an act committed years ago – an act for which she paid time in prison but has never yet felt exonerated from. A mother goes to remove her disabled and deformed child from the back seat of a car at the same time another car appears coming down the road driven by a women with only a shade too much to drink. A car door opens, a mother and child are struck, a child dies and a world of people suffer unbearable and unstoppable pain.

Caroline has come home to the shoreline to be with her mother as she enters the latter stages of cancer. Selfishly she pleads for her mother to stay with her and, like any unselfish mother would do, the mother clings to life for as long as she can to satisfy her child. It is only when Caroline whispers to her mother that she is pregnant that her mother knows her daughter will not be left alone and she is at peace to take her last breath.

Intertwined in Caroline’s story is the life of coastal fisherman – not the kind with poles and nets but those who raise and nurture oysters and shellfish. The history and detail of their livelihood was fascinating and brought much appreciation for all that is involved to bring oysters on the half shell to your table. Their days are comprised of caging, netting, raking, burying, and other tasks on a daily basis to ensure maturity and growth. They endure the harshest of weather conditions, and like a farmer, much is left to chance when your partner’s name is Mother Nature.

This story involves social battles, internal battles and internal healing. There is loss and there is love. There is high tide and there is low tide. In the end we have to hope that life, like the sea, shows some mercy to us all.