The Decision That Started It All
By:Elysha Charyk
Wild is a story that navigates us through
the life of the author after losing her Mother, when she was only 22 years old. In the beginning she starts to explain the
process of planning her hike of the Pacific Crest Trail, which I believe that
in the long run she will discover things about herself that she didn’t know.
Throughout the story Cheryl Strayed,
navigates us through the ups and downs that she has had to face in her
life. Which I think that we can all
agree that everyone has gone through ups and downs in life. I know when I was younger I had lost my grandma,
even though it’s not the same as losing your mother, the person who brought you
into this world, but I could relate too how she was feeling.
This quote really stood out to me because I think it’s very
inspirational. This is a very inspirational quote because I believe that, she used the strength that she gained to help her
through her mother’s death, to help her through the hard times of hiking the Pacific
Crest Trail.
This story is easy to relate too, and very
easy to sympathize with this author. She
goes into much detail about her hike on the PCT, and everything that happened
in her life, that helped her become the person that she used to be back before
her mother passed away.
At the beginning of the story she starts off with her, her mother and, her stepfather going to the doctor’s to find out what’s wrong with her mother. When they find out that her mother has lung cancer, and because the doctor’s found it too late there was nothing that they could do, and she was given one year to live. Her mother died just after a few months, which made me think about my grandma when, she was in the hospital. Also after her mother had passed away she thought that because she was older, she had to take over the responsibilities because no one else would. “I couldn’t leave Minnesota. My family needed me. Who would help Leif finish growing up? Who would be there for Eddie in his loneliness? Who would make Thanksgiving dinner and carry on our family traditions? Someone had to keep what remained of our family together. And that someone had to be me. I owed at least that much to my mother.”
Her decision to hike the PCT began when her
mother passed and, she started to make bad decisions in her life. After her mother passed away, and she got divorced
from her husband, she started dating Joe.
Before she broke up with Joe, she did Heroin, and ended up getting
pregnant. “I’m Pregnant,” I said when I came out, tears filling my eyes. Aimee and I reclined on the bed talking about
it for an hour, though there was nothing much to say. That I would get an abortion was a fact so
apparent it seemed silly to discuss anything else.” After finding out that she was pregnant, and
deciding to abort the baby was one of many events that had happened in life
that led her to hiking the PCT. This was just a few the things that helped her in deciding to hike the Pacific Crest Trail.
