Patience+Loyalty+Love=Poignant Story

Rocky-1964

I named him "Rocky" after a TV show character about rocket ships. We bonded immediately. He'd lick my face and we'd run around the compound. He'd be at the gate once it's time for me to arrive from school yelping and wagging his tail. He was black and white, the colors of our former two dogs, whitey and blacky. He didn't grow as big as they though. One day, I just arrived and there was no rocky at the gate. A hand led me to my aunt's office and he was there bloodied, cold, and lifeless. A car ran-over him. I only shed a tear, what else a 9 year-old could do? He was not even a year old puppy. Never had a dog since then. My cousins named their black and white dogs Rocky, Rock 1, then Rock 2 successively. I still remember those eyes when we faced each other at the gate.

Hachiko-1981

He was not my dog. I just noticed a statue of him at Shibuya Station when I was in Tokyo, 1981. The story goes that the Akita would send his master to the train station for work and comeback to meet him in the afternoon after work. It went on and on. Till one afternoon, the master failed to arrive. Hachiko would return every afternoon of everyday till he grew old and weak and died at the station. He kept waiting for that familiar face, smile, gait, smell but the master wouldn't come. People, all colors, love this poignant tale. It never fails to make me remember Rocky.