“I was twenty-two, the same age she was when she'd been pregnant with me. She was going to leave my life at the same moment that I came into hers, I thought. For some reason that sentence came fully formed into my head just then, temporarily blotting out the Fuck them prayer. I almost howled in agony. I almost choked to death on what I knew before I knew. I was going to live the rest of my life without my mother.”

American writer and podcast host

Cheryl Strayed is an American writer and podcast host. She wrote the novel Torch and the nonfiction books Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, Tiny Beautiful Things, and Brave Enough. Her best-known book, Wild, tells the story of her 1995 hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. It became an international bestseller and was adapted into the 2014 film Wild, which received an Academy Award nomination. Her work often draws on personal experience and the search for repair, endurance, and self-understanding.