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

by Mitch Albom

And from that point forward, all we knew about time would change, from the way we used to spend it, to the way we cherished it. * * *

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. I learned that from you.

Giving a person your time is focussing on them, not on you!

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.

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.

Hope is critical. It is almost mandatory to soldier through troubled times. Conversely, there is no affliction like hopelessness. I believe it is worse than anything that strikes the flesh.

“Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work.” —Dr. John Trainer

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

What you carry is what defines you. It can be the burden of feeding your family, the responsibility of caring for patients, the good that you feel you must do for others, or the sins that you will not release. Whatever it is, we all carry something, every day. And for all your time with us—as you so defiantly stated, Chika—my job was carrying you. My job was—and is—carrying your brothers and sisters in the orphanage. My job, it turns out, after so many years without them, is carrying children. It is the most wonderful weight to bear.