Kelley Calvin Outside Reading #2

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Part One: The Ten Thousand ThingsChapter 1: The Ten Thousand Things

During this chapter, the reader is enlightened to reasons as to why Strayed decided to leave her regular life and start hiking the PCT. Even though she gives a plethora of reasons as to why she is hiking the PCT, the main reason is because her mom dies when she was just 22 years old after battling cancer. 

When Strayed found out her mother was dying, they were together with Strayed's Step-Father at a doctors office. The news shocked Strayed. Her mother was a healthy woman who eat a vegetarian diet and never smoked. The news of her cancer, and that it wasn't treatable, was an incredibly difficult pill for Strayed to swallow. The reader goes further pack into Strayed's mothers life learning she got pregnant with her first child at the mere age of 19 and married a man who abused her for multiple years. In total, she had three children. The family settled in Minnesota where Strayed's Mother met her new husband Eddie. 

We learn that Strayed and her mother went to college together for three years before she was diagnosed with cancer. This resulted in both of them dropping out of college. The doctors originally told Strayed mother she had an entire year to live but she actually only lived for a month after her diagnoses. After her mothers death, Strayed had multiple dreams where her mother commanded her to kill her and nothing would make the dreams go away.