Dinner with Aunt Sissy

By Liz Zuercher

I was feeling sorry for myself as I drove up the coast for a duty visit to my great aunt in assisted living. My sixtieth birthday was looming, my husband had dropped dead of a heart attack a few months earlier and my children and siblings all lived too far away from my home in Troy Hill to provide more than an occasional supportive phone call.

How much fun could this be? I grumbled to myself as I pulled into the Sunset Villas parking lot, dodging an old woman with a walker. I was feeling guilty, too, because I hadn’t been here to see Aunt Sissy since James died. I just couldn’t make myself look death square in the face the way you do in a place full of old people.

But I’d forgotten what a pistol my father’s Aunt Sissy is, even at 94. Margery May Schneider Price, known to everyone as Sissy, greeted me with a big hug in the front lobby, the sweet aroma of her signature Chanel 5 engulfing us. As usual, Sissy was dressed to the nines. She wore white pants, a blue and white striped silk blouse and a jaunty red linen jacket. Her short white hair curled softly around her face. Her lips and fingernails were as red as her jacket. She’s a tiny woman, but she carries herself like a queen, her head held so high you forget how short she is. I think Aunt Sissy has grown taller and more regal in her old age rather than shrink like the rest of us. She’s fond of telling the story of how we’re all descended from a German baron who disowned his daughter for marrying a carpenter. Aunt Sissy likes the nobility part, but she really loves the spunk of the daughter who defied her father for love and ended up moving to America.

“That’s the kind of stock we’re from,” Aunt Sissy often reminds me.

Sissy sure has that spunk. She was always more like an older sister to my father than an aunt, but not the protective kind of sister. She was the one who would get him into trouble or take him on an adventure when she was babysitting. My dad just loved Aunt Sissy, and she doted on him.

Sissy showed her spunk after her only child was stillborn right before her husband shipped off to the South Pacific during World War II. She showed us what she was made of again, when he returned in a flag-draped coffin.

Sissy didn’t waste much time mourning. She was all about getting on with life, which she did with gusto. She never re-married, though she was a good-looking woman who had many suitors and never wanted for male companionship. I think she preferred to steer clear of deep commitments and the risk of losing a loved one again. She found a job in Kuhl’s Department Store selling cosmetics and twice a year she’d take a big trip with her girlfriends, or sometimes even by herself.

“I need to go someplace,” she’d say. “My feet are gettin’ itchy.” And off she’d go to India or Australia or someplace no one had ever heard of.

On Friday nights, before she moved to Sunset Villas, Sissy could be found at the piano bar at Steven’s Steak House singing along with whatever her entertainer friend, Jerry, was playing. Usually some time during the evening Jerry would give up the keyboard to Sissy, and between sips of Canadian Club on the rocks and drags on her cigarette, she’d play Gershwin songs by ear. Sissy knew how to have a good time. She still does – even at Sunset Villas.

I was just in time for dinner and Aunt Sissy led me to a table in the middle of the dining room where her usual tablemates, Joe, Charlie and Sal, rose to greet us and pull our chairs out for us. The three of them must be at least ten years Sissy’s junior, but you’d think she was the young one the way they flirted with her. I marveled at how she gave it right back to them, not missing a beat.

I'd never stayed for dinner on previous visits - James always wanted to get home - so I was surprised at how good it was. We ate filet of sole and sipped wine while the men took turns telling jokes that had Sissy and me holding our sides from so much laughter. After dinner we all retired to the lounge, which is what they call the common area. Sissy sashayed over to the piano, sat down, and with a grand arpeggio started the evening’s entertainment, getting everyone to sing along to upbeat big band era songs. I just had the best time. I don’t think I’ve felt so alive in ages.

As I drove back to Troy Hill, it dawned on me that Sissy has more spark at 94 than I have at 60. Well, I’ve got that feisty German girl’s blood in me, too, I thought. I punched the button for the CD player and Aretha Franklin started belting out “Natural Woman”. I sang along with Aretha all the way home.