ABOUT 18 months ago, my 97-year-old grandmother went out to dinner with some friends. As Nanna got out of the car, she tripped over her friend Shirley’s cane, fell to the pavement and came down hard on her elbow. Back at home, she headed to the kitchen to get some dessert — “and my left leg just crumpled.”
大约一年半前，97岁的外婆和几个朋友外出用餐。外婆下车时，绊到朋友雪莉(Shirley)的手杖，摔到人行道上，肘部重重地摔了一下。她回到家，去厨房拿甜点时发现“左腿有点不对劲”。
At the hospital, the doctors ordered X-rays, but couldn’t see anything wrong. After two weeks of therapy, Nanna was sent home, but she’d made up her mind. After 30 years of living in Florida, 28 of them as a widow, and most of those spent insisting that the only way she’d go back to her native Michigan was “in a box,” Nanna asked her older daughter, my Aunt Marlene, to find her a sunny place near Detroit.
医生给她拍了X光片，但没看出什么问题。治疗两周后，外婆出院了，这时她已做了一个决定。她在佛罗里达住了30年，其中28年是寡居，大部分时候她坚称，她只有“在骨灰盒里”才会回到故乡密歇根，但是现在她让大女儿、我的姨妈马琳(Marlene)给她在底特律附近找一个阳光灿烂的地方。
Last summer, she moved into an independent living facility with access to a range of services and activities. She has her own apartment, with a kitchen, but can eat her meals in a dining hall. After giving her a few days to unpack and settle in, I got her on the phone. How was it going?
去年夏天，她搬进了一个独立生活机构，这里提供一系列服务和各种活动。她有自己的公寓，里面有个厨房，不过她也可以在食堂用餐。在她安顿好几天后，我给她打了个电话，问她过得怎么样。

“Well,” Nanna began. Her apartment was lovely. The food was just fine, and there were all kinds of classes and courses to while away the hours. “Have you made any friends?” I asked, in the same chipper tone I used when my younger child returned from her first day at kindergarten.
“呃，”外婆说。她的公寓很可爱。食物还可以，还有各种讲座和课程，可以消磨时光。“你有没有交到什么朋友？”我用活泼的语气问道，就像我的小孩第一天从幼儿园回来时我问的那样。
There was a pause. Then: “They won’t let me sit at their table!” Nanna cried.
外婆停顿了一下，然后大声说道：“他们不让我跟他们坐在一起！”
“Wait, what? Who won’t let you sit at their table?”
“等等，你说什么？谁不让你坐？”
“You try to sit and they say, ‘That seat is taken!’ ”
“我想坐下，他们却说，‘这个座位有人了！’”
“Oh, my God,” I said, instantly thrust into a painful flashback of junior high, when I walked into the cafeteria and was greeted with the sight of leather purses looped across the chair backs and the sound of one girl with dramatically plucked eyebrows announcing, “Those seats are taken!” I hadn’t known enough to carry a purse. I had a lunchbox. (And it would take me another decade to figure out the eyebrow thing.)
“哦，天哪，”我说。我一下子想起了初中时的痛苦经历。我走进食堂，看到椅背上都挂着小皮包，一个眉毛修得很夸张的女孩大声宣告：“这些座位有人了！”我当时还不知道要带个小包。我只带了饭盒（又过了十年我才学会修眉毛这档子事）。
“And just try to get into a bridge game,” Nanna continued. “They’ll talk about bridge, and you’ll say, ‘Oh, I play,’ and they’ll tell you, ‘Sorry, we’re not looking for anyone.’ ”
“我就是想打打桥牌，”外婆继续说道，“她们在聊桥牌，我说，‘哦，我会打’，然后她们说，‘对不起，我们不是在找人打牌。’”
“Mean girls!” I said. “There are mean girls in your home!”
“真刻薄！”我说，“这些女孩在你家里还这么刻薄！”
“It’s not a home,” Nanna said sharply.
“这不是我家，”外婆马上反驳道。
I considered. “Here’s my advice,” I said. “Find a bridge foursome. Figure out which one of them looks weak. Then hover.”
我想了想，接着说，“我的建议是，找一个桥牌四人组。看看其中哪个人最弱。然后在她周围转悠。”
When I was young and innocent — say, last summer — the idea of 90-year-olds in pecking orders, picking on those at the bottom, was a joke. Everyone knew that the real danger to the elderly came from unscrupulous relatives, con artists or abusive caregivers. We’ve all heard sad tales of senior citizens being beaten, starved or neglected by the people paid — usually underpaid — to care for them.
我年幼无知时——比如去年夏天——认为90多岁的老人要排资论辈，欺负排在等级最底层的人这种事是开玩笑的。谁都知道老年人真正的威胁来自没良心的亲属、骗子或虐待人的看护员。我们都听说过付费看护人（通常报酬过低）殴打老人、不好好照顾老人或使老人挨饿的悲伤故事。
The notion that a threat to seniors is their peers is somewhat new, and usually played for laughs. It goes against a truism handed down from mothers to daughters for generations: This, too, shall pass. Mean girls are not girls, or mean, forever. High school doesn’t last forever, everyone grows up. But Nanna’s experience suggests otherwise. It says that the cruel, like the poor, are always with us, that mean girls stay mean — they just start wearing support hose and dentures.
同辈会对老年人造成威胁这种观念还比较新，通常是笑谈。它与母女代代相传的老生常谈相悖。我们一直以为：一切都会过去的。刻薄的女孩会长大，不会永远刻薄。高中会结束，每个人都会长大。但外婆的经历表明，现实不是这样的。她的经历告诉我们，就像永远有穷人一样，我们身边也总会有残酷的人，刻薄的女孩老了也还是刻薄——只不过她们开始穿护腿长袜、戴假牙。
A recent Cornell University study by Karl Pillemer proves the point, showing that aggression among residents in nursing homes is widespread and “extremely high rates of conflict and violence” are common. According to the study’s news release, one in five residents was involved in at least one “negative and aggressive encounter” with another resident during a four-week period. Sixteen percent were cursed or yelled at; 6 percent were hit, kicked or bitten; 1 percent were victims of “sexual incidents, such as exposing one’s genitals, touching other residents, or attempting to gain sexual favors;” and 10.5 percent dealt with other residents’ entering their rooms uninvited, or rummaging through their belongings.
康奈尔大学最近的一项研究证明了这个观点。进行这项研究的是卡尔·皮勒默(Karl Pillemer)，他发现养老院居民之间的侵犯以及“高频率冲突和暴力”十分普遍。他在该研究的发布会上说，在四周时间里，五分之一的居民与其他居民至少发生过一次“负面和攻击性交往”。16%的人被咒骂或怒斥；6%的人被打、踢或咬；1%的人遭到“性骚扰”，“比如暴露生殖器，抚摸其他居民，或者企图获得性福利”；10.5%的居民碰到过其他居民不请自来或者乱翻东西的情况。
Whether you’re brawling on the playground or battling over the best seats in chair-cercize, bad behavior is constant, and the rituals for trying to get in with the in-crowd don’t change much. Nanna’s quest for “the Cadillac of walkers,” a $400 number not covered by Medicare, mirrored my search a decade ago for the nearly thousand-dollar Bugaboo that would signal to my urban-mommy cohort that I belonged.
不管是在操场上争吵，还是在坐式锻炼中争夺最佳位置，都会经常出现恶劣行为，努力进入小团体的过程没有太大改变。外婆要买医疗保险不报销的400美元的顶端步行器，跟我十年前花了将近1000美元购买Bugaboo婴儿手推车一样，只是为了表明自己属于都市母亲这个群体。
What transforms with age are the criteria for judgment: not looks, not wealth, not the once-coveted ability to drive at night. When you get to be Nanna’s age, you’re reduced to a number — the younger the better. Even in a residence for the elderly, the 80-somethings will still be cold to the 95-year-olds. Now 99, my Nanna is completely cognizant of what’s going on. Her memory, both short- and long-term, is excellent. But once her new neighbors heard her age, they knew they didn’t want her at their table.
随着年龄改变的是评价标准：不是相貌、不是财富、不是曾经渴望的能在晚上开车的能力。到了外婆这个年纪，评价标准就只剩下年龄了——越年轻越好。甚至在养老院里，80多岁的人也会对95岁的人冷淡。我外婆现在99岁，头脑依然十分清晰。她的短期和长期记忆力都很好。但是新邻居们一听说她的年龄，就不想跟她坐在一起。
“My question is, are they rude? Are they nasty? Or is it that she’s not hearing, or is interpreting something that’s not really something? I can’t tell,” says Aunt Marlene. “I think there’s definitely cliques. I don’t know if there’s a way to alleviate the feeling of being left out. At 99, do you end up with a group? Does that happen? I don’t know. At first I thought, it just takes time. Now I wonder — maybe this is the way it is. Maybe you can’t expect anything else.”
“我的问题是，她们粗鲁吗？她们态度恶劣吗？还是说她没听清或者误会了？我无从判断，”马琳姨妈说，“我想那里肯定有小集团。我不知道有没有办法缓解这种被排挤的感觉。在99岁时，你最终能否拥有自己的小团体？会有吗？我不知道。一开始我想，过一段时间就好了。现在我想，也许情况就是这样了。也许你不能再期望什么。”
Bad behavior doesn’t change. Nor does the response from the ones on the sidelines, watching and hoping for the best. Even with lowered expectations, it’s hard. I fret about my first grader getting shut out of the four-square game or my sixth grader sitting alone at lunch. My mom and her sister wonder if their mother is suffering the same kind of isolation, exclusion and loneliness; the pain of having outlived every single one of your contemporaries, of having lots to say and no one to listen.
恶劣行为不会改变。旁观者的反应也不会改变——他们只会旁观，希望情况变好。即使降低期望，也很难实现。我担心我上一年级的孩子不能参加方块游戏，担心我上六年级的孩子吃午餐时没人跟他/她坐在一起。我妈妈和姨妈担心她们的妈妈也在遭受同样的隔离、排斥和孤独，忍受活得比所有同辈人都长的痛苦，以及有很多话想说却无人聆听的痛苦。
Nanna tries. Every day, she takes a class: Yiddish, current events, even iPad 101. She gets dressed up for dinner, with a pretty scarf, a new sweater. She’s gotten to know her neighbors, table-mates, even the one who forgets her name between one dinner and the next, and she’s joined a mah-jongg game — “even though I haven’t played in years.” The ledge outside her front door is home to a little stuffed bear, dressed in University of Michigan regalia, a hopeful sentry, and maybe a conversation starter.
外婆在努力。她每天上一门课：意第绪语、时事，甚至iPad入门。她去用餐时精心打扮，戴上漂亮围巾，穿上新毛衣。她慢慢认识了邻居和桌友，甚至包括那个在两顿饭之间就忘了她名字的人，她还加入了一个麻将小组——“尽管我好多年没打过了”。她门外的壁架上放着一个小毛绒熊，它戴着密歇根大学的校徽，是个充满希望的哨兵，也可能成为一次谈话的开端。
I try, too. Over Thanksgiving, we celebrated Nanna’s 99th birthday, with all 12 of her great-grandchildren on hand to tour the new apartment. Down in the lobby, my 6-year-old, Phoebe, and I met a beautifully dressed, immaculately made-up woman sitting on a bench with a cane, waiting for her niece to take her to Thanksgiving dinner at 5. It was 2. “Do you want to see my kitty?” she asked, and my daughter happily agreed. I learned that, like Nanna, the woman had moved in over the summer, was a Michigan native, and seemed sharp and aware. Feeling like a guy at a bar — another echo of another acceptance-and-rejection ritual — I asked for her number.
我也在努力。感恩节那天，我们庆祝外婆的99岁生日，有12个曾孙辈一起去参观她的新公寓。我和六岁的女儿菲比(Phoebe)在大堂碰见一个穿戴漂亮、打扮得无可挑剔的女人，她拿着手杖坐在凳子上，等待甥女5点钟带她去赴感恩节晚宴。当时才两点。“你想看看我的小猫吗？”她问道。我女儿欣然答应。我后来得知，她和外婆一样，也是密歇根本地人，也是夏天搬进来的。她看起来头脑清醒。我要了她的电话号码，感觉自己像酒吧里的男人，开始了另一场接受和拒绝的过程。
Then Phoebe and I took the elevator back up to Nanna’s apartment, where the refrigerator door is covered with pictures of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and I announced, “Nanna, I think I made you a friend.”
然后，我和菲比乘电梯回到外婆的公寓，她的冰箱门上贴满了子女、孙辈和曾孙辈的照片，我大声宣布：“外婆，我觉得我给你找了一个朋友。”