"My father"

My father is very kind and diligent. Moreover, he never loses his passion for knowledge.

When he was young, he attended the evening course in Ritsumeikan University because he couldn’t afford to go to the day course. But even though he was already taking the night classes, his money was not enough to support his tuition fee. He had to earn not only for his own education but also for the everyday expense of his family. His father (my grandfather) asked him to quit school. He had no choice to give up his studies. If he had continued for six months more, he could have graduated from Ritsumeikan University. He had regretted having left the university without a degree for a long time.

When he was 69, he fortunately found a course for a mature age students at Ritsumeikan University. About half of a century has passed since he left his university, he decided to try again and take  the entrance examination in the same university but failed. Yet, he never gave up. Without losing his hope, he prepared and studied hard planning to give it another try and in the following year, he took the exam again and passed. There was not enough word to describe his great joy for his success. One of the newspapers published an article about my father’s success.

He was a 70- year old university student. I thought he was one of the most hard-working and enthusiastic student in his university. Whenever I visited his house, he was always studying. He was never absent from school except his older sister’s funeral. Though it took four and a half years, at last he graduated from Ritsumeikan University.

His experience teaches us that it is never too late to start something. Our family members are proud of him and we hope he lives longer and happily.