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

tFrom Goodreads,

""Mitch Albom has done it again with this moving memoir of love and loss. You can’t help but fall for Chika. A page-turner that will no doubt become a classic.” --Mary Karr, author of The Liars’ Club and The Art of Memoir

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Tuesdays With Morrie comes Mitch Albom’s most personal story to date: an intimate and heartwarming memoir about what it means to be a family and the young Haitian orphan whose short life would forever change his heart. 

Chika Jeune was born three days before the devastating earthquake that decimated Haiti in 2010. She spent her infancy in a landscape of extreme poverty, and when her mother died giving birth to a baby brother, Chika was brought to The Have Faith Haiti Orphanage that Albom operates in Port Au Prince.

With no children of their own, the forty-plus children who live, play, and go to school at the orphanage have become family to Mitch and his wife, Janine. Chika’s arrival makes a quick impression. Brave and self-assured, even as a three-year-old, she delights the other kids and teachers. But at age five, Chika is suddenly diagnosed with something a doctor there says, “No one in Haiti can help you with.”

Mitch and Janine bring Chika to Detroit, hopeful that American medical care can soon return her to her homeland. Instead, Chika becomes a permanent part of their household, and their lives, as they embark on a two-year, around-the-world journey to find a cure. As Chika’s boundless optimism and humor teach Mitch the joys of caring for a child, he learns that a relationship built on love, no matter what blows it takes, can never be lost.

Told in hindsight, and through illuminating conversations with Chika herself, this is Albom at his most poignant and vulnerable. Finding Chika is a celebration of a girl, her adoptive guardians, and the incredible bond they formed—a devastatingly beautiful portrait of what it means to be a family, regardless of how it is made."

Goodreads - Finding Chicka

Ever since I read Tuesdays With Morrie in high school, Mitch Albom has easily been one of my favorite authors.  His books are always so thoughtfully written and I feel that they make me question things around me.  My mom told me that she had picked up a new book by him and I knew that I had to get a copy for myself to read.

This book is Mitch Albom's journey back into nonfiction as he tells the story of Chika.  Mitch operates an orphanage in Haiti which is where Chika was left at just three years old.  But soon Chika was having health problems that made Mitch and his wife make the decision to bring Chika to America to hopefully get better care.  Mitch first saw it as a job, but soon found that Chika had completed their family and was a piece that was missing in their life.  Finding Chika is the story of Mitch trying to understand and deal with loss and love in life. 

All of Mitch Albom's books are full of life lessons.  I could reread Tuesdays With Morrie every year and take something completely different away from it.  This book is yet another that I found a nugget of wisdom that really made me stop.  The quote, "The most precious thing you can give someone is your time, Chika, because you can never get it back.  When you don't think about getting it back, you've given it in love."  This quote really stuck with me.  I had a principal who always said, "The most precious thing you can give someone is your time because you can never get it back."  There were extra things that I would do for my kiddos or to make a lesson really "stick".  She always made it seem as if I was wasting my time on silly things.  I also remember talking to her about my boyfriend and the plans we had with each other especially concerning the future, and she said that same quote to me.  But the quote from this book really made me stop and think.  It doesn't matter if I give my time to someone or something, as long as it matters to me.  Who and what I choose to give my time to is my decision, because 98% of the time I'm giving my time out of love.

This book is written in a very unique style, much like Tuesdays With Morrie.  The book rotates from past to present as it tells life lessons and memories of Chika.  The style that it is written in takes some getting used to, but it really tells the whole story.  We can see glimpses into moments that most people take for granted.  I feel like this showed that Chika was just a child and her illness didn't define her.  Albom's writing style also allowed us to get Chika's story, as well as seeing how Mitch was coping with her being gone.  While reading the book I could tell that Chika's passing left a gaping hole in the lives of Mitch and his wife, Janine.  They had altered their calm life to center around Chika and her wild spirit.  In the chapters where Chika "visits", you can tell that Mitch is mourning her and trying to learn how to be a family of two again.   I think this book was very much a way of healing for Mitch, and we the readers were just along for the ride. 

Albom has a very unique writing style, and this book was written a lot like Tuesdays With Morrie.  This book rotates from glimpses of Chika in a specific moment, to the present, to the past while Chika was sick.  Each of these components was just as important as the next as it fully captured Chika's spirit and attitude.  Being able to read a short glimpse of Chika in a specific moment really reminded me that Chika was just a child going through a horrific illness, but yet it didn't bring her down.  There were chapters where Mitch was in the present writing the book and Chika would appear.  This really showed the relationship that Mitch and Chika had.  I definitely feel that Mitch "seeing" Chika was a way for him to cope and deal with the loss that he was experiencing.  The portions of the book that took place in the past told the story of Chika and her fight against DIPG.  Each page and each chapter was written with love and was pieced together in a way that allowed the story to flow and ebb so that the reader was constantly on a roller coaster of emotions. 

This book did not disappoint.  (Mitch Albom's books NEVER disappoint!)  It was full of emotion and real life.  Parents need to read this book.  I don't have kids, but it made me want to stop and cherish every moment I have with my nieces and nephews.  Life happens fast and literally, anything can happen that changes the course of what you had planned.  I give this book 5 stars and recommend it to fans of Albom's or parents who need a good heartfelt read.