Princess Aiko Loves and Heals Animals: An Essay Written When She was 13, ‘Aiko the Nurse’

 

 

Her Imperial Highness Princess Toshinomiya Aiko of the Imperial Household celebrated her 20th birthday on December 1. Her essays from her junior high school days are attracting renewed attention.

 

The following is the full text of "Aiko the Nurse," a short story written by Princess Aiko in her first year at Gakushuin Junior High School.

 

 

Aiko, a nurse

 

I'm Aiko, a nurse.  Recently, this clinic has finally started to receive a lot of patients, and today's clinic took until it was dark outside. The doctor left before I did, and I was left to clean up and lock the door, going back and forth between the waiting room in the back and the reception desk in the front by myself.

 

　It must have been around eight o'clock in the afternoon. I dozed off on the sofa in the waiting room. The next morning I was awakened by the bright sunshine and jumped up. As I opened the door to go home, I almost fell down. In front of me was an endless expanse of bright blue ocean.

 

How far the clinic had been washed away in one night?　

 

　No, the town might have been transformed into a big ocean. I tried to call for help, but the phone was disconnected. I was at my wits' end.

 

The next morning, I woke up to the sound of someone knocking on the door. Outside the door, a white seagull with one injured leg was floating, about to be swept away by the tide. I tended to the seagull as best I could. Thanks to my efforts, the seagull was fine the next day and flew off into the blue sky, spreading its bright white wings.

 

　After that, injured sea creatures began to come to Aiko's clinic one after another.

 

Even though I was not a qualified veterinarian, I did my best to care for the animals that came to me, and even helped a penguin suffering from a stuck fish bone.

 

　Aiko's name became well known throughout the sea, and I became a vital force in the lives of sea creatures. That's right. Aiko's clinic has truly become a clinic on the sea.

 

　Today, I am sure that Aiko is doing her best to take care of the patients who keep coming to her, giving them courage and hope.

 

　Source: Gakushuin Women's Junior and Senior High School "Student Works" (2014 edition)

 

 

On the day of her 20th birthday, a TV program featured this essay, and the commentators were in awe of her "sensitivity and expressiveness.

 

Their Majesty Emperor his family are known to have taken in and raised several shelter animals since their days at the Crown Prince's Palace, and Princess Aiko is the godmother of Yuri, a Shiba dog, and is often photographed with Yuri.