Finding Chika: A Little Girl, an Earthquake, and the Making of a Family

Mitch Albom is the writer of Finding Chika and many other fiction and nonfiction titles. In his fifties, he took over an orphanage in need of support in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and began a new purpose for his life. He spent years with a team building up the orphanage to make it functional and capable of providing a good life for the children who lived there. In part due to his faith and in part due to a deep need to take care of children, Albom became devoted to his position there. As of the memoir’s publication, Albom continued to run the mission, with all profits from Finding Chika going toward supporting it.

When Albom met Chika in 2013, he could already tell she was unique, but he was not aware of just how special Chika was until she came to live with him and his wife. Albom recounts the lessons that living with Chika taught him about families, which he learned come in all different varieties and from all sorts of circumstances. Illustrating their close familial bond, Albom begs the spirit of Chika to stay with him while he writes, making it a condition of going through the process: “You have to stay here while I do. You have to stay with me, OK?” (7). Albom’s time with Chika’s ghost also suggests that he is clinging to her memory and not ready to let her go. Indeed, when he reaches the seventh part, in which Chika dies, it is like reliving it all over again. In his effort to save Chika, Albom demonstrated resilience and perseverance even when others counseled him to give up. Because of this, Chika lived over a year longer than most children with DIPG. However, through Chika’s illness, he ultimately had to learn that parenting is as much about what he calls “carrying” as it is about protecting. He learned that he must relinquish control, even when doing so is painful, and ease Chika’s suffering as much as he could. Ultimately, his care for Chika resulted in his taking in two of Chika’s siblings at the orphanage, continuing his parenting journey.

Becoming a father figure to Chika made Albom more empathetic and caring. It led him to understand that Sharing Time is an act of love. Albom expresses shame over his youthful hoarding of time, feeling guilty that he had wasted so much while Chika had and wasted so little. The “Us” sections of Finding Chika emphasize his shared time, with Chika and these sections express joy and liveliness even when they also express sadness. Chika also taught Albom to appreciate small pieces of beauty in the world. The narrative is full of anecdotes about Albom and Chika playing together, and Albom worked very hard alongside Janine to protect and nurture Chika’s childhood.