EVERY FAMILY HAS A RICH AUNT. Mine was Aunt Sally. Living in an exclusive area of Toronto, so exclusive it didn’t have a name, she was what my mother called haikara (snob), a proud member of the Curators’ Group at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Music Director’s Circle of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the Canadian Opera Company Conductor’s Club. Maybe a snob but she was a lady; such a lady in fact that one of her working-class nephews never wanted to visit her in her exclusive duplex up Mt. Pleasant Avenue North, north of Lawrence Avenue, naturally.
“Never felt like I could swear around her,” he claimed.
“You like to swear at your aunt?” I questioned.
In any case, I suspected he was right. A good loud vulgarism would’ve broken her in half.
Aunt Sally’s real name was Satsuki Tanaka (née Jikemura), “Sally” an obvious substitute in a “Canadian” world. Confusing me as I grew up was the fact that she wasn’t my real aunt. My parents were alone in Canada and worked for the Jikemura logging company in British Columbia before WWII. So, they became my family in everything but common birth.
She was my Courtesy Aunt and so I called her “Aunt” out of respect. Her father was Grandpa, her mother Grandma, and her husband Uncle Eizo, which seemed logical. The strange thing was that her two sisters were not my “aunts.” Furthermore, her eldest sister (Sachiko Kawai) was Oneesan, meaning Oldest Sister, to my older brother, and the youngest called
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Terry Watada is a well-published writer living in Toronto since birth. He has 3 novels, 5 poetry books and a short story collection in print. His sixth poetry collection will be released in the fall of 2023. His fourth novel, "Hiroshima Bomb Money," based on another aunt's short life, is due to be released in 2024.