Free and Fast

Updated on December 15, 2019

By Christine Sims

I sat on the bus along with a group of other elderly travelers, all with a shopping trolley, a walking stick or a walking frame.  No, it wasn’t the hospital mini bus due to arrive at the hospital, it was the regular bus transporting mainly elderly passengers to drop- offs to do their shopping, for hospital visits or elsewhere.

One large lady, already finding it difficult to walk, ambled to the exit with her walking stick and asked the driver to give her extra time to get down to the pavement.  Of course he did as he knew his regular travelers well and their individual restrictions. Although partly restricted already myself, I thought, ‘That will be me in the coming months after my second knee replacement’.

As she slowly reached the pavement, one careful foot at a time and slowly moved into the supermarket car park, a large sign post next to her read:  FREE AND FAST.  This was advertising the properties of the supermarket and it’s Car Park. Looking at this sign next to the elderly lady I thought: ‘No, this world is not geared for the elderly, our world is not FREE AND FAST, on the contrary it is RESTRICTED AND SLOW.’  I carried on with my journey, wishing the world could turn back to a former time when life did not have to be free and fast, but had limits and was taken at a much slower pace.

Progress is good, but too much progress can rush ahead and lose some of those treasured values, albeit just a slower pace of life, forever buried in the past.

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