As I was writing this, my eyes were still redden and swollen from crying, my nose were still running and it was hard to breathe. I can't quite remember the last time I was crying so hard that my voice became shaky, my throat tightened until it was difficult for me to breathe and tears just wouldn't stop flowing out from my eyes even if I wanted to. I think I had stopped crying like that after I went to high school.
This would be the first time ever that I cried in such a way over a story I read from Wikipedia and a movie trailer. I haven't even seen the movie yet. A film, Hachiko: A Dog's Story (starring Richard Gere), was released in 2009. It wasn't released in Malaysia, though. It's a pity because I really wanna see it. But I saw the trailer when I was simply changing the channels on the TV. I stopped when I knew that the movie is about a dog (I always enjoy shows and films that involve dogs). The trailer didn't even last for 3 minutes and I was already so touched by it and tears started flowing out of my eyes. But it was just like any other normal reaction after seeing a touching scene in a movie --- just a few drops of tears.
However, I got so curious about the star of the film, the dog, I went and read the story of Hachikou. It was a real life story. Hachikou was a pet and best friend of a professor (Ueno Hidesaburou) back in 1920s. He was one of the members of the beautiful breed, Akita Inu. He had stayed with the professor since the day he took him in, even after the death of the professor. In the morning, he would see his owner off at the front door and wait for him to come home at the Shibuya Station in the evening. This routine continued everyday until May 1925, when the professor never come back and see Hachikou at the station like he usually did. But Hachikou kept waiting, even after he was sent off to another owner. He would escaped routinely to his old home, the professor's house, and wait at the front door. Eventually, he knew the professor would not come home and so he went to the station to wait every evening. He would show up exactly the time when the train arrives. The professor never appeared, not because he abandoned Hachikou, but because he suffered a stroke and died before he could go home to Hachikou on that faithful day.
Hachikou kept going to the station and the frequent commuters at the station would feed him as they know he was waiting for his owner who would never come back again. The routine continued for 10 years until he finally died in 1935. He was found on the street on the way to the Shibuya Station.
I was crying the entire time when I read the article on Wikipedia. I've never cried over a story or an article as hard as this time before. The fact that touches me the most is that Hachikou died with his owner still in his mind and he was still waiting for the professor to come home. Words simply cannot describe the feeling I'm having now. It's really such a shame that some people never appreciated the loyalty and faithfulness of the man's best friends, by actually abandoning them on the street or abusing them.
The story of Hachikou just made me love dogs even more than I already do.
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