My nephew’s birthday is coming up and so last week I hurried myself to the post office before going into work. It was a sunny morning and thus a rather crowded town centre would challenge my patience. Don’t worry; I am not writing about my day out in town! I do however like to share a moment where I faced one of those situations in life where I started thinking, wondering and maybe even worrying, about today’s society.
As I was waiting to cross the road, I spotted an older woman in a distance. She was working her way up to an elevated footpath, bravely and determinedly manoeuvring her wheeled walker. Lots of people where on the go, passing her on their way to work, to shopping, to whatever it was their day was filled with. In the midst of this swarm of busy people, she was trying her best not to get the wheels stuck in one of those unfortunately positioned drain grates (I hate those when I bike around!). It took a while before there was a space in the stream of cars (which did not help my patience very much) and I could not help myself taking in the struggle she was going through. Finally, just as I am about to cross the road, the woman stopped wiggling her walker. She just stood there, her two hands resting on the handles… defeated! The image hit me, as if she lost the battle. It made me sad, empty and agitated all at the same time. No, the latter did not come from the testing of my patience, but from witnessing over a dozen of people walking passed her. None of them was willing to take one second out of their day to battle together with her, to help her out.

When I came closer, I approached her and asked if she wanted a hand. What followed was one of the most wonderful feelings one can experience (in my opinion). Not only did she, almost shamefully, agreed to me helping her, she gave me a smile of pure gratefulness and relief. Even though I was aware that time was ticking away and I really needed to get started on the writing task I set for myself that day, I just couldn’t help myself asking her where she was going. She was on her way to the store next to the post office. As I was walking with her, heading in the same direction, she kept on telling me that I should go ahead because I ‘probably’ was short on time or had somewhere to be or something to do or… A whole list of excuses was presented to me and I assured her that a couple of minutes were not going to make any difference to any of those tasks.

Literally that was all it took out of ‘my’ day, a couple minutes! A couple of minutes, during which I had an enriching conversation with an older lady, walking together in the same direction. Numerous times I have ‘lost’ ten times as much time before going into work because I couldn’t find my phone charger or had to go back because I forgot something or just because I spent too much time looking at messages from friends etc. Anyway, it made me think and slightly concerned about our society. That older lady could have been my grandma, helplessly left on the side of a busy road. For all I know, it could be me in fifty years’ time, assuming I would even reach that age and be as brave as she was to still go out on my own to do some shopping and still have the capacity to do so.

These people helped to raise us, they contributed to the life we are able to live now (even though they knew they probably wouldn’t benefit from it themselves), they often took care of younger generations and their own parents at the same time and are now at the age that they see people around them ‘disappear’. Their lifelong friends are passing away, their children are trying the best they can to provide their own kids with everything, their grandchildren are growing up in a ‘global’ time and might live miles and miles away, etc. Living abroad myself, far away from my grandparents, I can only hope that someone who crosses their path takes a few minutes to help them out when they need it.

The thing is, I shouldn’t even be writing about ‘what I did’ the other day, because it is nothing special or exceptional at all! All I did was lifting up a wheeled walker for an older lady (who is someone’s grandmother, mother, aunt, sister, etc.) on my way to the post office. The reason I felt to write about it is that over a dozen others did not take those couple of minutes and missed the opportunity to help out someone they would like to seen helped if they were ‘close’ to them, someone who one day might even be them…