In the American sitcom New Girl, on a park bench in Los Angeles, twentysomething shambles Nick Miller (Jake Johnson) befriends an old man named Tran (Ralph Ahn), who helps him work through a conundrum without uttering a word.
Tran pops up throughout the show’s seven seasons, his soothing, silent counsel helping Nick navigate adult life. It’s worth watching the entire, criminally underrated series just for this beautiful, untypical friendship.
Fans have speculated that Tran is a figment of Nick’s imagination, a tight-lipped Tyler Durden with kind eyes and an infectious smile. But real or not, Tran clearly represents the father or grandfather Nick desperately craves. And I feel that – I’ve had a few Trans myself.
It is a strange feeling when yours becomes the oldest generation in your immediate family. It’s even stranger when you’re in your 20s. Yet there my sister Ariella and I found ourselves years ago, our last surviving grandparent just passed, our parents gone before, with no aunts or uncles ever born to speak of.
I didn’t feel the more general absence of elders in my life immediately after Nanna died, too concerned with simply grieving (and drinking). Her final years had also seen a complete inversion of our relationship, with me and Ariella taking care of her, as had been the case with Mum and Dad. It took a while for my brain to reset, recalibrate and realise something bigger was missing.
Post-reset, this sense of lacking has manifested in a number of ways. With frustration, for example, at having nobody to ask about our family history – anecdotal and medical – and with deep existential anxiety about lacking a safety net. What will happen if I screw up? Who will catch me if I fall? What if I end up homeless? I imagine this happens to lots of people when their parents pass, but at 24, it was particularly brutal.
I began to seek the company and counsel of people of my parents’ and grandparents’ ages. With the exception of two lovely gentlemen, my Trans have all been women. I was very close to my mother and nanna and it is their loss I have felt the most. I wish I hadn’t taken their presence and wisdom for granted when they were alive, as I imagine many people do. It’s such a shame it’s not something we truly value until it’s gone. Like lactose tolerance. And Fantales.
At first, it happened subconsciously, this gravitational pull towards older people. But in time, it ceased being serendipitous and became a more conscious act. It’s not like I lurk around aged care homes or hang out by the supermarket probiotics. You don’t have to lock up your grandparents. But if I meet an older person I click with, I try to cultivate that relationship and I’m usually the richer for it (emotionally – you don’t have to lock up the silverware, either).
Over the years, I’ve built low-key bonds with many wonderful, tender-hearted, inspiring people. There was Shirley, my brother-in-law’s lovely late grandmother, whom I had known for many years before forming a relationship separate from family gatherings. I don’t remember exactly what led to us hanging out but I would take her for coffee and she’d tell me about her life and give me advice about mine. Unfortunately, our coffee club was short-lived, as is par for the course with such friendships, their single downside.
There was Antonia, with a silver bob, big blue spectacles and chutzpah. We were both regulars at a local cafe and we bonded over coffee, crosswords and cult fashion. We’d sit at adjacent tables, doing our word puzzles and comparing notes. A writer and critic, she had lived a covetable, badass life in UK fashion and art circles in the 60s, 70s and 80s and had wild stories to show for it, most of which I learned at her funeral.
Regrettably, there was also Belinda, whom I met in the same cafe – clearly, I spend too much time in cafes. I was drawn to Belinda for similar reasons as Antonia. She was an artist and we’d talk about books and films and whatever we were both working on. At first, she seemed cool, all bohemian and a little mysterious but she turned out to be a narcissist, dripping in unchecked privilege and antisemitism. The last one was kind of a dealbreaker.
There have been others, and hopefully there will be more, but right now I’m Tran-less, save for chats with my elderly neighbours. And as I get older, as I unfortunately must do, these intergenerational friendships are becoming far less, well, intergenerational. I’m yet to notice grey hairs but the gap is ever-so-slightly starting to close.
Perhaps when it closes in one direction, another will open and I will be the Tran, an old lady on a park bench – or probably in a cafe – befriending a young woman who needs a shoulder or an ear or a nanna. She will be the daughter or granddaughter I never had, which is a whole other thing, and one with no New Girl references.
Nadine J Cohen is the author of the novel Everyone and Everything, out now through Pantera Press
