49 pages • 1 hour read
Finding Chika: A Little Girl, an Earthquake, and the Making of a Family
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Parenting and Familial Bonds
Content Warning: The source material and this guide include extensive discussion of terminal illness in a child.
In large part, Finding Chika is about the many forms families can take and the wide variety of parenting opportunities available for those with open hearts. Family’s importance is evident from Albom’s first account of the Have Faith Haiti mission, where children and staff have created their own unique type of family that touched Albom deeply. Through his time with Chika, Albom learned still more about how rewarding family life could be. Chika’s entry into the Alboms’ lives allowed Albom to take on the role of father figure for Chika and Janine to take on the mother role. Albom reflects on the way that he and his wife seemed to naturally fall into the parental role without question. By remembering and striving to embody the values that his father taught him about protection, safety, and warmth, Albom became the father he never expected to be. He concludes that Chika “made [him and Janine] a family” because she filled the void of what they saw as a missed opportunity to be parents (231).
Albom’s family also taught him about both himself and the world. Chika challenged Albom’s notions of parenthood because she experienced pain and trauma that he could not protect her from. Albom learned that in times when protection is not possible, “carrying” loved ones who have become weak is just as important a job. As Chika’s health deteriorated, Albom and Janine began fighting, blaming each other for their predicament. However, with Chika’s help they realized they must support each other to get through what was coming, further illustrating Albom’s contention that families are for support in times of trouble rather than just protection.
Finding Chika also challenges narrow definitions of what constitutes a family. Sometimes Albom felt like a substitute father, particularly after meeting Chika’s biological father, who he knew could lay claim to her at any time. Still, in observing Janine and the staff of the orphanage, Albom realized there are all sorts of parents and families, not all of which can be captured by labels like “mom” and “dad.” Albom describes Janine as in all ways a mother, helping Chika eat, dress, and bathe and playing with her every day. Chika helped Albom to see his wife in this role—something he might otherwise never have experienced. While the effort and emotional exhaustion of parenthood overwhelmed Albom at times, he ultimately sees the experience as worth it.
Sharing Time
One of Albom’s deepest regrets in life is his selfishness with his time for most of his adulthood. Albom and Janine never had their own biological children, largely due to Albom’s own hesitation. He looks back on his younger self as a self-absorbed man who was primarily concerned with ensuring that he spent his time doing things that benefited him directly. For the most part, this meant a focus on his career. Albom did not marry Janine until their late thirties and even then was reluctant to have children. In waiting so long, it ended up being too late, and Albom and Janine had to accept they would never have biological children. Albom considers this his fault. At one point Chika’s ghost asks if Janine ever forgave him, and he is unsure how to answer.
One of the lessons that Albom learned from Chika is the way that a person’s time—how it is allocated and what it means—changes when life changes. In caring for Chika, Albom had to devote himself to something other than his own interests. Chika had special needs related to her disease in addition to all the needs of a healthy child. Albom and Janine spent most of their time caring for and worrying about Chika, causing Albom to agree when Chika told him that his job was to carry her. Albom notes, “Time changes. With a little one, it is no longer your own” (74). Through this realization he learned not to hoard time because sharing it was far more fulfilling. Further, Chika went at her own pace in life and slowed down to take in everything around her. This was the opposite of what Albom was used to, but he learned that it could be rewarding.
When Chika died, it became even clearer to Albom that he should not waste his time on earth on selfish pursuits. In particular, he cautions against hoarding time as “an affront to God” because it assumes that one is guaranteed time (26). He tells Chika’s ghost that time, as a finite resource, is “[t]he most precious thing you can give someone” (78). He equates freely sharing time with others as a type of love. Chika herself seemed to have an innate sense of the preciousness of life and the value of sharing that with others rather than keeping it to herself. Albom emphasizes that Chika never hesitated to share her time with all those loved ones who wanted to share it.
The Wonder of Childhood
The opening chapter sees Albom reliving the nights he used to read Winnie the Pooh stories to Chika. The reference is a hint toward the idea of an eternal childhood because the world that Pooh and the other animals inhabit is one that Christopher must eventually leave. Through the children of Haiti, however, Albom was able to grasp the wonder of childhood decades after he himself left it.
Chika and the other children at the orphanage embodied a sense of resilience. Though they came from a place with lots of troubles, they were still like children, making Albom want to protect them. Albom describes their delight when he installed working showers. Seeing the children’s joy “doing something [he] all but sleepwalked through” (49) reawakened him to the awe-inspiring nature of existence. Albom adds that though adults initially convinced him to go to Haiti, the energy and resilience of children like Chika made him return. This celebration of small victories became a cornerstone of Albom’s time with Chika as well.
The third lesson in Albom’s memoir is “A Sense of Wonder” because living with Chika brought this back into his life (88). Waking up each morning with a child who was eager to experience whatever was coming her way, even when her health was deteriorating, gave Albom a similar sense of wonder. Chika was always asking questions about God, the world, and her own future, and this did not cease as long as she was alive. She belted out her favorite songs loudly and in her own unique way. She was an eager and adventurous eater and embraced her faith in God through gospel music. Albom describes her singing passionately at the hospital, searching for fairy doors, and using a teddy bear to communicate the love between them, noting that this is common between parents and children.
Nevertheless, Chika’s illness adds a tragic dimension to this theme. While many adults regret growing and long for the simpler days of childhood, Chika was always eager to grow up. She dreamed of being “big,” of getting married and having children. She begged Albom to let her try coffee and was thrilled when he relented. Chika became frozen in her childhood, and all memories of her are of this time, which Albom reinforces by depicting her visiting him as a spirit.
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By Mitch Albom
