Diksha Sundriyal
Starring Kathryn Hahn in the lead role, Hulu’s ‘Tiny Beautiful Things’ tells the story of Clare Pierce, a 49-year-old woman whose life is falling apart. Going back and forth between the past and present, we see her life from different angles, understanding the path that took her to her choices. The thing that influences her the most is the loss of her mother. Even as Clare enters the fifth decade of her life, she thinks about the things she didn’t do with or say to her mother.
The show is partially based on Cheryl Strayed’s life, and much like Clare’s love for her husband and daughter, Strayed also harbors the utmost love and devotion for her family. However, unlike the show’s protagonist, the best-selling author has a much happier and stable relationship with her husband and children.
Cheryl Strayed’s Husband is a Filmmaker
Cheryl Strayed married Brian Lindstrom, a documentary filmmaker, in 1999. The couple, who have two children, live in Portland, Oregon. Born and raised in Portland, Lindstrom is a Parkrose High School graduate with an MFA in screenwriting and film directing from Columbia University.
Strayed and Lindstrom first met in 1999, nine days after she completed the hike on the Pacific Crest Trail. They were introduced through a mutual friend in Oregon, and when Lindstrom discovered that she had spent around three months hiking the trail alone, he was “astonished by the news.” It was something he’d always wanted to do. This mutual interest developed into a friendship, and four years later, they got married near the spot where Strayed’s hike had ended.
While Strayed has made a name for herself as an accomplished writer, Lindstrom has been working as a director, producer, and writer. He has produced award-winning documentary films that focus on social issues like human rights and drug addiction, among other things. Some of his well-known works include the true crime documentary ‘Alien Boy: The Life and Death of James Chasse’; a documentary about addiction and recovery, ‘Finding Normal’; and the biographical documentary ‘Soldier of the Heart: The Judee Sill Story.’
Lindstrom has also co-directed ‘We Are Forbidden’ with his wife, focusing on the stigma surrounding menstruation in Nepal. He has also made films about the issues surrounding the youth in Portland and rural Oregon, among other things. He has taught in the Northwest Film Center’s Young Filmmaker’s Program “ using video as a tool of empowerment for at-risk youth.” The several awards that Lindstrom has won include Best Documentary at the 2016 Oregon Independent Film Festival for ‘Mothering Inside’ and the 2016 Fellowship Award for artistic excellence and achievement in the media arts from the Regional Arts & Culture Council.
Cheryl Strayed Has Two Children
Cheryl Strayed and Brian Lindstrom have two children. Their son, Carver, named after the writer Raymond Carve, is eighteen years old. Their daughter, Bobbi, named after Strayed’s mother, is seventeen. Bobbi played the role of a young Cheryl in the 2014 film, ‘Wild,’ which stars Reese Witherspoon as adult Cheryl and Laura Dern as Bobbi, Cheryl’s mother.
Talking about the scene between Dern and her daughter, Cheryl said: “Some of the more powerful scenes for me were things like watching my daughter play the young me—watching the scenes she’s in with Laura Dern. It was moving to see her leaping into Laura’s arms or snuggling with her in bed, things that my kids have never gotten to do with my mother. I cried watching that.”
Even though Strayed shares pictures with and of her children on social media, she doesn’t give away too much about their lives. However, she does express her love for them. Talking about how motherhood changed her, she said: “Life as I knew it ended the day my first child was born. It was a different world because he was in it, and then my daughter was in it. And I was a different person. Suddenly, I went from living for myself to living for my children, and the way that I love them is so profound that it altered everything. I remember being absolutely rocked to my core by how profoundly I could love another human being.”
With her children coming of age, she has prepared herself for them to go out in the world and forge their own paths. “Now here I am in middle age, wondering what’s next? What’s this next era about? I can feel it in my bones that a journey is coming. My kids leave the nest in a couple of years, and I’m longing for a journey to help me see the road ahead clearly,” Strayed said.
Read More: Do Claire and Danny Get Divorced at the End of Tiny Beautiful Things?
