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

by Mitch Albom

There are many kinds of selfishness in this world, but the most selfish is hoarding time, because none of us know how much we have, and it is an affront to God to assume there will be more.

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.

One of the best things a child can do for an adult is to draw them down, closer to the ground, for clearer reception to the voices of the earth.

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

that was my perception of fatherhood, a place where a child can find sanctuary.

there is no affliction like hopelessness. I believe it is worse than anything that strikes the flesh.

“Because,” he said, “as terrible as I felt, I took comfort in having something I could cry to, a power to whom I could shout, ‘Why?’ It is still better than having nothing to turn to at all.”

Well, when people get married, they share the love of a couple. But when children arrive, they create another love, not just for the new additions, but for the new entity they have created. The family. It is not better than a couple’s love, it’s complementary, forged with a new appreciation, and a wider, expansive heart.

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.