时间：2026-09-16     【转载】

在18位满脸皱褶、行动不便、或偏瘫或长年卧在床上、年龄都在80岁以上的老年人群中，21岁的广振，如墨黑发洁净脸庞，正青春勃发。可是很多时候，他和老人一样，低着头，沉默着，与他年龄极不相称的表情，或只有别人喊他才抬起头来迷茫地看看的下意识动作，表明他是一个孤独症——即自闭症患者。

包粽子，过于复杂了

6月17日，端午小长假第二天。一大早，陆续从济南赶来的老年大学义工，来到位于济南市历城区仲宫办事处的圣爱幸福家园，欢声笑语打破了这个老年公寓的寂静。

义工队队长是60多岁的张展阿姨，她前几天已经买好了糯米、大枣、粽叶，在小长假第一天下午送了过来，泡了一夜，糯米和大枣都吸饱了水，软嫩适中。还有义工从山上挖来的野菜，义工队的爷爷奶奶们分成了两拨，一拨包粽子，一拨包水饺。

包粽子这个技术活对广振来说显然过于复杂了，义工手把手教他包了一个，但是到最后，广振捏着线头，不知该干什么，只是不停地放到鼻子下面闻闻。

包好的粽子很快堆了一大盆，分袋装起来冻冰箱里了，广振似乎明白了，啊啊地比划了一下，去帮着往塑料袋里装。拿起一个，放到鼻子下闻一下，再投到塑料袋里。

“广振进步真快！鼓励一下自己！”

广振拍拍手。

“广振真棒！”

其实这只是一个刻板的动作，对广振来说比较困难，但是一旦学会，就会机械重复，再也不会忘记。

18岁被送进养老公寓

和绝大多数自闭症孩子的经历一样，1997年出生的广振，刚生下时和正常孩子没有任何区别，粉嫩而健康。但是到3岁了还不说话，可能感到孩子有问题，广振爸妈便带他四处求医，那时“自闭症”这个词儿大多数人还没听说过，而广振的自闭症症状的确也不明显，有家医院的医生甚至生气了，说你这孩子很正常啊，看什么病？是你家长有病还是孩子有病？

2010年13岁，广振被送到日照，在那里的一个机构呆了5年。按正常孩子的发育期，那时正应该是长个子的时候，但广振在外地并没得到多少照顾，一直“猴瘦猴瘦”的，大前年接回来送到老年公寓后，才慢慢恢复过来，开胃了。

把孩子送进养老公寓，“纯属意外。”广振妈妈说，经一个朋友介绍，当时就想，孩子这样，只好试试看吧，临时呆呆不行再接回来，结果这一个月很好，广振也很喜欢那里，走的时候说妈妈拜拜，这说明他真喜欢在那里呆了。

学会了和老人相处

广振胖了。

在这家名叫圣爱幸福家园的老年公寓里住了两年多，他从一个“猴瘦猴瘦”的小孩子，成长为一个又高又壮的小伙子。

在这里他慢慢学会了大小便后自己冲水。

学会了自己系围裙，然后给老人端饭。

他学会了和老人相处，老人也习惯了他闷葫芦一样的存在。广振喜欢这里，老人也喜欢他。但大多数时间他只是沉默不语。

养老公寓的开办人是张广芳，一位50来岁的中年妇女。公寓里住了18位老人，大多是附近的农民。或因偏瘫，或血栓后遗症，或小脑萎缩，总之大多不能自理。

来自仲宫左而村的83岁的吴银泉老人，患有小脑萎缩。为了让他保持神志清醒，每天早饭后，张广芳让他叠餐巾纸，这时他便会带着广振一起叠，动作机械。叠纸是一项必修课，叠纸可以让老人静下来，也可以让广振静下来。

吴银泉老人意识有些模糊，刚入住时总感觉这公寓是他家，要收房租。“这房子都是我的，租房子不给我钱吗？斗地主还要敲锣打鼓呢！”他一边叠纸一边说。

广振在他边上沉默不语。

“这个孩子你认识吗？喜欢他吗？”

“喜欢。”

这孩子真好，可惜了

孙京伦，今年80岁。他是老年公寓里唯一一位身体健康的老人，他在老年公寓外面找了大约半分地，种了辣椒、茄子、扁豆、丝瓜、油菜、木耳菜、地瓜，在夏天，公寓里的老人偶尔可以吃到他种的新鲜的蔬菜。

孙京伦老人坐在那里，一只手不停地拍着另一只手臂，紫铜色的手臂上青筋突出，还有老年斑。广振有时陪他坐在树荫下，双手不停地交叉来回搓，两个人的动作有时挺像，也挺一致。

孙京伦也很喜欢广振。说：“广振这孩子真好，可惜了！”

孙京伦来自烟台海阳，老家原先有七间屋，老伴儿去世后，儿子儿媳把他接到了济南。依孩子们的意思，想让老人住在家里，但是老人坚决不去，说不能掺和孩子们的生活，“不便，不方便。”儿子忙于工作，儿媳却是真孝顺，便把他送到了这个老年公寓，他说，“生好儿不如娶个好儿媳，住这里多少钱？我不问，也不知道，都是儿媳拿钱，孩子的事不必要知道。”

儿媳每半月会来看他一次，端午小长假第一天就来了，留下一些好吃的。

“儿子儿媳孝顺，这就是命……像广振，这就是命，广振这样还算好的，要是生一个不能动的，你端屎端尿还得养活不是？”

妈妈生下健康的妹妹

广振妈妈和一群大龄自闭症孩子的家长，在四处奔走呼吁，想建立一个大龄自闭症儿童的托老机构，但是“太难了”！土地、政策等等这些不是他们所能解决得了的。

“一个也是养，两个也是养，最差也和广振一样吧？再赌一把。”生下广振的十年之后，广振妈妈又拿命赌了一把，在2007年她以超强的勇气生下了一个女孩，所幸，这是一个聪明健康活泼的姑娘，能歌善舞。而大多数自闭症孩子的家长，一朝被蛇咬，十年怕井绳，永远打消了再要孩子的念头，一个自闭症孩子就拖垮一个家庭，再也不敢要第二个。

大龄自闭症孩子的养老，是最大的难题，这些家长们问得最多的一个问题是：“我老了死后，孩子谁来照顾？”

其实大多数自闭症孩子的前期遭遇都是相似的：发现孩子不正常，北上广四处求医，最后确诊，只是发展程度不一样，表现症状差异越来越大，有的喜欢捡垃圾，有的喜欢摔玻璃，有的喜欢高声喊叫，有的使劲捂耳朵。难以预料的各种突发状况，加上专业护理人员的缺乏，大龄自闭症儿童的奉养在全国范围都是一个难题。

而广振，因为脾气好，不吵不闹，生活能够自理，所以能在这个养老机构里安稳地呆下去。对广振来说，这个养老公寓是他能够安全居住的“蜗牛壳”。他是那些大龄自闭症孩子中，运气最好的一个。

能给每位老人送饭

两年前，义工队帮老年公寓整理了台阶，并在小院子里栽上了玉兰树，种起了葡萄，搭起了葡萄架，安上铁栅栏，给公寓围起一个小院子。

葡萄藤和成串的青葡萄，遮下一片阴凉，不知谁在铁栅栏上插了一个老虎骑单车的风车玩具，但只有一只车轮在风中旋转。

广振安静地坐在葡萄架下，看这群爷爷奶奶包粽子，只是不知道他是否听得懂他们的欢声笑话。爷爷奶奶们包粽子的丝线在广振眼前飞舞，越来越快。他的眼神是直的，盯着线，一动不动。时间像一堵巨大的墙，堵在他的面前，时间也像一张巨大的网，把他缠在里面。

中午，义工爸爸奶奶们煮的水饺出锅了。广振开始给每位老人送饭。他系好围裙，每端一碗饭，就习惯性地又在后面系一下围裙的绳子，重复再重复。

广振自己的饭量越来越大，面条吃两大碗半，水饺两大盘。吃完饭后，他大多时间沉静地坐着，沉静在一个谁也不知道的世界里。

他的时间仿佛凝固在这个养老公寓里，如果幸运，他也许会在这里陪着一茬茬老人终老。

正青春的广振，夹在一群耄耋老人之中，特别突兀显眼，他是最年轻的养老者。

Among 18 elderly people — faces deeply wrinkled, mobility impaired, some hemiplegic, some bedridden for years, every one of them over 80 — 21-year-old Guangzhen stands out: hair as black as ink, a clean face, bursting with youth. Yet much of the time he is like the old folks: head down, silent. An expression utterly out of keeping with his age, and the reflexive habit of only lifting his head to give a bewildered glance when someone calls him — these reveal that he is a person with autism.

Wrapping Zongzi: Too Complicated

June 17, the second day of the Dragon Boat Festival holiday. Early in the morning, volunteers from the University of the Third Age came one after another from downtown Jinan to Sheng'ai Happiness Home in Zhonggong Subdistrict, Licheng District, Jinan. Their laughter broke the silence of the retirement home.

The volunteer team leader is Aunt Zhang Zhan, who is in her sixties. A few days earlier she had already bought the glutinous rice, red dates, and reed leaves, and delivered them on the first afternoon of the holiday. Soaked overnight, the rice and dates had drunk their fill of water and were soft and just right. Other volunteers had dug wild vegetables from the hills. The grandmas and grandpas of the volunteer team split into two groups: one wrapped zongzi, the other made dumplings.

Wrapping zongzi is a skilled job, and for Guangzhen it was clearly too complicated. A volunteer taught him hand over hand to wrap one, but in the end Guangzhen just held the end of the string, not knowing what to do next — he only kept putting it under his nose to smell it.

Soon the finished zongzi piled up in a big basin, were bagged, and put in the freezer. Guangzhen seemed to understand. With a sound of "ah, ah," he gestured, then went to help fill the plastic bags. Pick one up, sniff it under his nose, drop it in the bag.

"Guangzhen is improving so fast! Give yourself some encouragement!"

Guangzhen clapped his hands.

"Guangzhen, you're great!"

In truth this is just a rote motion, and for Guangzhen it is rather difficult. But once he learns it, he repeats it mechanically, and he will never forget it.

Sent to a Retirement Home at 18

Like the experience of the vast majority of children with autism, Guangzhen — born in 1997 — was no different from any normal baby at birth: pink and healthy. But by the age of three he still wasn't speaking. Suspecting something was wrong, his parents took him everywhere seeking medical help. Back then most people had never even heard the word "autism," and Guangzhen's symptoms were indeed not obvious. One doctor at a hospital even got angry: "Your child is perfectly normal — what are you seeing a doctor for? Is it the parents who are sick or the child?"

In 2010, at 13, Guangzhen was sent to Rizhao, where he stayed for five years at an institution. At that age, when a normal child should have been growing tall, Guangzhen got little care away from home and stayed "skinny as a monkey." Only after he was brought back and sent to the retirement home three years ago did he slowly recover and get his appetite back.

Sending their child to a retirement home was "purely an accident," says Guangzhen's mother. A friend introduced the place, and at the time she thought: with a child like this, we may as well give it a try — he can stay temporarily, and if it doesn't work out we'll bring him home. But the first month went very well, and Guangzhen liked it there too. When he left he said, "Bye-bye, Mom" — which shows he really did enjoy staying there.

Learning to Get Along with the Old Folks

Guangzhen has put on weight.

In the two-plus years he has lived at this retirement home called Sheng'ai Happiness Home, he has grown from a scrawny little boy into a tall, sturdy young man.

Here he slowly learned to flush the toilet himself after using it.

He learned to tie his own apron, and then to carry meals to the elderly residents.

He learned to get along with the old people, and they grew used to his silent, gourd-like presence. Guangzhen likes it here, and the old people like him too. But most of the time he just keeps quiet.

The home was founded by Zhang Guangfang, a middle-aged woman in her fifties. Eighteen elderly people live there, most of them farmers from nearby. Whether from hemiplegia, the aftereffects of thrombosis, or cerebellar atrophy, most of them cannot take care of themselves.

Eighty-three-year-old Wu Yinquan from Zuo'er Village in Zhonggong has cerebellar atrophy. To keep his mind clear, after breakfast every day Zhang Guangfang has him fold napkins — and at those times he takes Guangzhen along to fold with him, in mechanical motions. Folding paper is a required course: it calms the old man, and it calms Guangzhen too.

Old Wu Yinquan's mind is a little clouded. When he first moved in he kept thinking the home was his own house and that he should collect rent. "This house is all mine — you rent it and don't pay me? Even playing Dou Dizhu needs gongs and drums!" he says as he folds paper.

Guangzhen sits beside him in silence.

"Do you know this child? Do you like him?"

"I like him."

"Such a Good Kid — What a Shame"

Sun Jinglun is 80 this year. He is the only able-bodied old man in the home. Outside it he found about half a fen of land (roughly 350 square feet, or a small garden plot) and planted chili peppers, eggplant, hyacinth beans, loofah, rapeseed greens, Ceylon spinach, and sweet potato. In summer the residents occasionally get to eat the fresh vegetables he grows.

Old Sun Jinglun sits there, one hand ceaselessly patting his other arm, whose coppery skin is furrowed with prominent veins and age spots. Sometimes Guangzhen sits with him in the shade of the trees, rubbing his own hands together over and over, crossing and uncrossing them. Their two sets of movements are sometimes quite alike, quite in sync.

Sun Jinglun likes Guangzhen a lot too. He says, "Guangzhen is such a good kid — what a shame!"

Sun Jinglun comes from Haiyang in Yantai. His family home used to have seven rooms. After his wife died, his son and daughter-in-law brought him to Jinan. The children wanted him to live with them, but the old man refused flatly, saying he couldn't intrude on the children's lives — "Inconvenient, too inconvenient." His son is busy with work, but his daughter-in-law is truly filial, and so he was sent to this retirement home. "A good son is nothing compared to a good daughter-in-law," he says. "How much does it cost to live here? I don't ask and I don't know — my daughter-in-law pays. There's no need for the old folks to know about the children's affairs."

His daughter-in-law visits every two weeks. She came on the first day of the Dragon Boat Festival holiday and left some treats behind.

"A filial son and daughter-in-law — that's fate… And a kid like Guangzhen — that's fate too. Guangzhen is one of the luckier ones. If you had a child who couldn't move at all, you'd still have to carry the piss and shovel the shit and keep him alive, wouldn't you?"

Mom Gave Birth to a Healthy Little Sister

Guangzhen's mother and a group of parents of older children with autism have been running around appealing for support: they want to set up a care home for adults with autism. But "it's just too hard" — land, policy, and so on are things they simply cannot resolve on their own.

"One is raised the same as two. Worst case, the second one turns out like Guangzhen, right? Let's roll the dice again." Ten years after Guangzhen was born, his mother gambled with her life once more. In 2007, with extraordinary courage, she gave birth to a girl. Fortunately, the girl is bright, healthy, and lively — she can sing and dance. Yet most parents of children with autism, once bitten twice shy, abandon forever the idea of having another child. One child with autism drags an entire family down; they dare not have a second.

The elder care of older children with autism is the greatest difficulty of all. The question these parents ask most often is: "When I'm old and gone, who will take care of my child?"

In fact the early experiences of most children with autism are similar: the parents notice something is not right, travel to Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou seeking doctors everywhere, and finally get a diagnosis. Only the degree of development differs, and the symptoms diverge more and more: some like to pick up trash, some like to smash glass, some like to shout loudly, some press their ears hard. With all kinds of unpredictable emergencies and a shortage of professional caregivers, the support of older children with autism is a nationwide challenge.

Guangzhen, because he is good-tempered, neither noisy nor rowdy, and able to take care of himself, can stay on steadily in this facility. For Guangzhen, this retirement home is the "snail shell" in which he can live safely. Among those older children with autism, he is the luckiest one of all.

Able to Deliver a Meal to Every Resident

Two years ago, the volunteer team helped tidy up the steps of the home and planted magnolia trees in the small yard, planted grapes and put up a grape trellis, and installed iron railings, enclosing a small courtyard for the home.

The grapevines and clusters of green grapes cast a patch of shade. Someone — no one knows who — has stuck a windmill toy of a tiger riding a bicycle onto the iron railing, but only one of its wheels spins in the wind.