Cheryl Strayed said Friday that her husband, filmmaker Brian Lindstrom, died at 65 after battling progressive supranuclear palsy, a serious and fatal illness she disclosed to followers earlier this month. Strayed said she, their daughter Bobbi and son Carver were with him as he took his last breath.

“Brian Lindstrom died this morning the way he lived — with gentleness and courage, grace and gratitude for his beautiful life,” she wrote in announcing his death. “What tremendous luck it was to be his partner for more than thirty years.”

Strayed said Lindstrom had been diagnosed on May 1 and that she canceled a writing workshop and an upcoming appearance at Hunter College to stay by his side. When she first shared the diagnosis, she asked people to hold her family in their thoughts, prayers, light and love.

The loss ends a partnership that began in 1995, when the two first met and went on to build a family and work together on film projects. Strayed said Lindstrom was “the most magnificent dad” to Bobbi, 21, and Carver, 20, and that their children embody everything good and true about him.

Lindstrom’s films often focused on people pushed to the margins. Strayed said he told stories about incarcerated mothers and their children, people with mental illness and substance use disorders, teens in homeless shelters, foster care and detention centers, and others she described as people “society puts an X through.” His credits included the 2013 documentary Alien Boy: The Life and Death of James Chasse and Lost Angel: The Genius of Judee Sill in 2022. He and Strayed also co-directed We Are Forbidden in 2019.

Strayed is the author of Torch, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar and Brave Enough. Wild was adapted into a 2014 film starring Reese Witherspoon, and Tiny Beautiful Things became a 2023 Hulu series starring Kathryn Hahn. For Strayed, the immediate question is not what Lindstrom accomplished — it is what remains of a family trying to carry his work, his name and his absence at once.