Finding Chika, page 14
She leans back, smiles, and pulls her pajama top over her head.
“Where is Chika?” she asks.
She puts her hand against my heart.
“There she is!”
And she is gone.
Epilogue
Medjerda “Chika” Jeune was buried in Haiti on the fifteenth of April 2017. Many of the Americans she touched flew down for the ceremony, which was also attended by her godmother, her father, the entire staff of our orphanage, and, to our surprise, her younger brother and two older sisters. A small group went to the grave site afterward, where butterflies flitted around the trees that shaded her corner.
On her grave marker were the words from the song she sang by herself that night:
MWEN SE PITIT BONDYE
“I am a child of God.”
Later, back at the orphanage, our kids gathered in their best clothes for their own little church ceremony. Many of them stood and declared their favorite thing about Chika, including “she really liked to eat.” After that, we released three dozen pink balloons in her honor, and they lifted into the air and flew over the streets of Port-au-Prince.
As I moved around the grounds, I spotted her baby brother, Moïse, and I almost lost my breath. He looked so much like her. He was three years old, the same age as Chika when she came to us. I offered him a hug and he jumped into my arms and squeezed me with a grip that was new and old at the same time.
Later that afternoon, his guardian, Chika’s uncle, asked to speak to me. He said he had taken Moïse after Chika’s mother died because the child had no place else to go. But he and his wife had children of their own, and money was hard to come by. He saw the mission facilities, the dormitories, the kitchen, the school.
“Would it be possible,” he asked, “for you to take Moïse in now?”
And that is what we did.
He lives there to this day, as does Chika’s sister Mirlanda.
The world is an amazing place.
Let us end with this story. I used to drink coffee every morning. Chika would watch me make it, and, as was her way, she would coo, “What’s that?”
“It’s coffee, Chika.”
“I wish I had some coffee.”
She asked for months. The more I told her coffee wasn’t for children, the more she wanted it. Finally, one morning, I relented, and she held the cup in both hands and took the smallest of sips and said, “Mmmmm!”
I still don’t know if she really liked it, or just enjoyed feeling more grown-up.
And that, as we look back on things, is what haunts us the most. Not the struggle. Not the disease. The fact that the years pass and we say, “Chika would have been eight” or “Chika would have been nine,” or, one day, “Chika would be in college now, drinking coffee.” It’s not the time she spent battling we lament. It’s the growing up she missed. The time she didn’t get. The future she never saw. That still seems so unfair.
But none of us are assured of tomorrow. It’s what we do with today that makes an impact. Chika filled every day. She drank it in. She lived it up. And always, always, she affected someone, most often by making them smile.
People ask what I learned from this experience. I’ve tried in these pages to lay that out. But I can say one thing above all else. Families are like pieces of art, they can be made from many materials. Sometimes they are from birth, sometimes they are melded, sometimes they are merely time and circumstance mixing together, like eggs being scrambled in a Michigan kitchen.
But no matter how a family comes together, and no matter how it comes apart, this is true and will always be true: you cannot lose a child. And we did not lose a child. We were given one.
And she was glorious.
Courtesy of the author
Acknowledgments
Seven years is far too short a life, but it is long enough to have touched—and be touched by—many others. I would like to give credit here to the people who touched Chika’s brief but inspiring time on earth.
First, to those who nurtured her in health: our entire team at the Have Faith Haiti Orphanage—the nannies; the teachers; the support staff; our Haitian directors, Alain and Yonel; and our American directors, Jeff and Patty, Jennifer and Jeremiah, Anachemy, and Gina. Your dedication to Chika—and to all our children—is beyond inspiring.
Herzulia Desamour, Chika’s godmother, took her in when Chika’s mother died. Rolande St. Lot helped steer her to us. And her forty-plus Haitian brothers and sisters at the orphanage gave Chika someone to love and play with every minute of her time there.
Once her battle with DIPG began, the list grew longer. One life touches so many others. In no special order, thanks to all these people who helped along the way:
The incredible staff at C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan, who embraced Chika like a beacon of joyous light and helped defray the enormous costs of her care: Dr. Pat Robertson, Dr. Carl Koschmann, Dr. Hugh Garton, and Dr. Greg Thompson viewed Chika inside out, and the countless doctors, nurses, and support team always made her feel special during her hospital stays. No wonder there is a Superman in your lobby.
Equal thanks are due to Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan, and its incredible radiology team, led by Dr. Peter Chen. The staff there sent Chika home with more toys than a Walmart, and let her ring the bell when she finished her treatments. She hugged every one of you.
The team at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York, under the dogged inspiration of Dr. Souweidane, deserves gratitude. We hope that information learned from Chika will benefit others trying the CED approach.
And in Germany, enormous thanks to Dr. Van Gool and the smart and kind staff at IOZK in Cologne. Chika was so happy during her time there. I think she sensed you are onto something right with immunology. And to the family and memory of little Gianna, who, however briefly, became Chika’s overseas friend.
Special thanks to Tammi, Jason, and Lloyd Carr, who took their heartbreak and turned it into inspiring action with the Chad Tough Foundation. You did for us what we have tried to do for others climbing the DIPG mountain. Someday, thanks to folks like you, someone will get over the top.
Our endless gratitude to the many other organizations who embraced Chika: Walk the Line to SCI Recovery (Erica and Ira and the teams who came to our home); Health Partners, Inc. (John Prosser, Donna, and the incredible nurses who came through after midnight); all the folks at Hospice of Michigan and Dr. Ken Pituch and the team from Ann Arbor; Born Yoga in Birmingham, Michigan (thank you, Ashley, for letting Chika fly); and our homegrown house-call medical team of Judy, Jill, Susie, Mary, and “Dr.” Michelle. To Julie Ford for teaching us PICC lines, Greg Holmes and Katherine Roth for their vast nutritional knowledge, Dr. Hunt for Chika’s teeth, and Kevin and Cindy, for that special little chair.
And then there are Chika’s “friends.” Age meant nothing to her. Only your heart and your time. For sharing those so generously with our little girl, deepest thanks, in again, no special order, to Frank (who took her everywhere); Kim and Walid (who took her everywhere else); Nicole M. (Baba . . . ghan-oush!); Dianne (her admired teacher); Dr. Val and Rick (her favorite dog visits); Marina, Rudy and Chris (her Belgian hosts); Antoinetta (her Cologne host); Margareth, the Alley family and “Grandma” Peggy; “Pastor Donkey,” Jordan, Lyn, Carmella, Catherine (swimming); Connie and Linda (who kept our house and us from falling apart many times); Dr. Chad Audi and family, Rosemary, Margie M., Terrie and Doug, Monica and Heath, Vito, Sandy, Taki, Yuki, Tomoko and Kaz, Perry G., Mike and Trish (“Silence!”), Della, Sara Werr, LaKema C.; and, of course, always, our extended loving family of Cara, my tireless, brilliant sister, who kept Chika’s lessons coming; my brother Peter, who made Chika laugh; Kathy, Tricia, and “Papa” Rick, Greg, Anne-Marie and sons (we all know how she felt about Aidan); Johnny S., and all our many nieces and nephews who knew her: Jesse and Marlee, Gabriel, Laura Beth, Nicole S., Johnny, Daniel, Michael and Lindsay, (little) Janine and Anton and daughters, Devon and Steven, Alex, David and Jenny, Paul, Joey and Josh.
Our family became her family, and she reveled in that.
My work world also melded into Chika’s world, so deep thanks to “Mr. Marc” Rosenthal, “Mr. Mark” Mendelsohn (she never called you a bum), Kerri (for endless transcriptions), Jo-Ann, Vince, Antonella, my radio staff, Jean Yee and Lisa Goich (for showering Chika with kindness from afar), and the folks in my publishing world who showed great patience when I choose time with Chika over my work.
As for this book, it doesn’t happen without David Black, who spent decades trying to tell me I would be a good father, and his wonderful team at Black, Inc., Susan Raihofer, Matt Belford, and Skyler Addison. My editor, Karen Rinaldi, wrestled with me like Jacob and the Angel, but only to get the best version of this story on paper, and I thank her very much for that. The rest of the fine folks at Harper have my humble appreciation: Jonathan Burnham, Leah Wasielewski, Stephanie Cooper, Doug Jones, Leslie Cohen, Tina Andreadis, Emily VanDerwerken, Jacqui Daniels, Rebecca Raskin, Hannah Robinson, Milan Bozic, Leah Carlson-Stanisic, John Jusino, Michael Siebert, and the many others who help to shepherd my book through to publication.
I wish to thank all our friends, colleagues, and doctors not listed individually here, because everyone who keeps you going on a journey like this, even for a day, becomes a small part of the story.
Finally, there is the largest part: Janine. During the year that I wrote this book, she would listen to me read the pages aloud, and it was hard and crushing and loving and exhilarating, which is what having a precious but sick child is like.
This is only my story because it was her story as well.
Chika. Janine. Me.
Us.
Mitch Albom
Detroit, Michigan
August 2019
About the Author
MITCH ALBOM is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction. He has written seven number one New York Times bestsellers, including Tuesdays with Morrie, the bestselling memoir of all time. His books have collectively sold more than forty million copies worldwide and have been translated into forty-seven languages in forty-nine territories. Albom has also penned award-winning TV films, internationally produced stage plays, a musical, and, for thirty years, a syndicated newspaper column. He was voted America’s best sports columnist by the Associated Press Sports Editors thirteen times in his career. In 2006 Albom founded SAY Detroit, which now oversees nine full-time charities in the metro Detroit area, and in 2010 he began operating the Have Faith Haiti Orphanage in Port-au-Prince, which he visits monthly. He and his wife, Janine, live in Michigan.
All author profits from this book go to the Have Faith Haiti Orphanage.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Also by Mitch Albom
Tuesdays with Morrie
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Have a Little Faith
For One More Day
The Time Keeper
The First Phone Call from Heaven
The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
The Next Person You Meet in Heaven
Copyright
FINDING CHIKA. Copyright © 2019 by ASOP Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Cover design by Milan Bozic
Cover illustration © Marien Van Mechelen
FIRST EDITION
Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission for use of the following: “The End” from NOW WE ARE SIX by A. A. Milne, copyright 1927 by Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © renewed 1955 by A. A. Milne. Used by permission of Dutton Children’s Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Illustration by Marien Van Mechelen
Digital Edition NOVEMBER 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-295241-7
Version 10092019
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-295239-4
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Mitch Albom, Finding Chika
