Sunday, October 16, 2016

The Journey of The Pacific Crest Trail



                                               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.



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