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

by Mitch Albom

A child is both an anchor and a set of wings. My old way of doing things was gone. Time changes. With a little one, it is no longer your own. All parents will tell you this.

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.

Look. It’s one of the shortest sentences in the English language. But we don’t really look, Chika. Not as adults. We look over. We glance. We move on.

Children wonder at the world. Parents wonder at their children’s wonder. In so doing, we are all together young.

because children, especially sick children, have a toughness unique to their young souls, one that can comfort even the fretting adults around them.

What we carry defines who we are. And the effort we make is our legacy.

But none of us are assured of tomorrow. It’s what we do with today that makes an impact.