Jojo over heaven

25
They would take kickbacks like it were natural to do, so the money a
child could earn never amounted to much. But gambling went on all over the
town, so it was easy to increase that into enough to buy liquor.
I made use of my mother's education here.
The education she gave me when I was very young, I first made use of it
in gambling...... I'm sure that would have been very much against what she'd
have wanted. When I think of that, it's very ironic. Because it was then that I first
felt grateful to her.
I thought how it was thanks to her that I was able to live to today.
It was the first time I was appreciative to her.
He himself couldn't earn much money, so when his young son bought
him liquor, my father expectably got in a bad mood and hit me. But to that
drunkard man, liquor took priority over anything, apparently. And he stopped
hitting me little by little.
It seems even that man was capable enough to calculate that if he hit me
so bad that I couldn't move, he wouldn't get booze anymore.
And so I thought, "I knew it. My mother was wrong."
That's what I thought in my childish mind.
While I was thankful for the knowledge and cultivation she'd given me, I
felt that my mother was still mistaken and foolish.
Even though I was very young, I fell that decision was very unlike me. Or
perhaps back then, no matter how much I scorned her as being "hopelessly
foolish her humane feelings of being unable to discard my father, I shared as
well...... Even though I don't want to admit it, if it's necessary to get to heaven, I
must admit to that as well.
"I was right, my mother was wrong.
"If Father only quit drinking he'd be a nice person?
"That's not true at all, is it?!
"Far from it. It's more like the more he drinks, the kinder he gets, doesn't
he----?"