Patience

Erma Hattendorf didn't have any patience for impatient people. She was born in a time when things moved a little more slowly. In her day, people traveled by train, a majestic steam locomotive pulling them across the American countryside to their eventual destination. People dined, slept, played cards with new friends. The journey was half of the adventure. Now people flew everywhere. Where was the romance in looking at a countryside from outer space passing by at six hundred miles per hour?

In Erma's time, men kept a watch in their pocket. No one had a phone there, let alone a device where you could check the weather and news, send messages to people all over the world, take a photograph and share it, store and listen to music. She wondered vaguely what happened to newspapers, letters with postage stamps, waiting a week to get your photographs back from the drug store and phonograph records. She missed the warm, rhythmic imperfections of the phonograph.

She wondered more directly why everyone was in such a hurry. Erma always thought life passed at the pace one kept. Those who ran it like a race, would finish it quickly and be very tired. She'd opted for the more leisurely pace wanting to meet her maker not only having savored every moment of the life He'd given, but well rested so she could greet Him with the proper reverence and exuberance such an event certainly deserved.

It was good that Erma was patient. Since the hip surgery a few years back, she was able to get around still, but only with the help of a walker. Even this was newfangled, a wheeled device with a basket, place to sit, a hand brake and a cup holder. She wondered why everyone had to have a bottle of water with them everywhere they went. Aside from a canteen while hiking, no one carried around water when she was young. To the best of her memory (which was admittedly fuzzy at times) she couldn't remember anyone dying from thirst in downtown Terre Haute.

Terre Haute! Now that was a memory from a far away place a long time ago. Erma wondered if even there people moved so much faster these days. She preferred to remember the saintly patience of Terre Haute in 1939. She remembered block parties and neighbors who helped each other out like family. No one seemed to even know their neighbor's names anymore.

Erma watched the eight lanes of traffic in front of her flooded with cars clearly disregarding the 45 mile per hour speed limit. This was the part of her biweekly trip to the grocer which always proved most frightening. She was certain it was only a matter of time before someone too busy to stop at a traffic light would run her down in their shiny, fast-moving automobile. If that was how Jesus was going to call her home, she could live with it. A slight smile crossed her lips as she realized the irony of the thought--living with the way she might die. Well, it was only ironic to those who thought that dying was the end instead of the start, but still amusing.

Oh, there would be some sadness when she left this world. She didn't really want to leave Glenda, Dorothy and Arlene behind. They'd all joked about how hard it would be to find a fourth bridge player their age when one of them made the journey home. None of them wanted to have to resort to playing 500 Rummy. She knew they'd miss her. At least she hoped they would.

Her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren? They might believe they missed her for a little while. But they were too busy to visit, so how bad could it be? Even as they closed on retirement themselves, both of her sons worked so many hours they were rarely home to get to know their children. It didn't matter, the great grandkids had schedules so jam packed with school, sports and other activities, they probably wouldn't have been there if their fathers stopped by anyway. They'd be fine. There was no place for a slow old lady in their world. Eventually they'd forget about her as they had forgotten about playing outside, eight hour work days, Sunday church or sitting down for the evening meal.

The cars finally crawled to a stop and the walk sign started flashing, a little, green symbol of a man telling her it was safe. Erma wasn't so certain. She waited until each lane had stopped before pushing her wheeled walker off the curb. Oh how she ached today! The eight lanes might as well have been the Sahara desert at the rate she was moving. The cup holder would come in handy there, she mused. She'd cleared the first three lanes and was moving into the turn lanes when the orange hand started flashing. She'd have to stop halfway across and wait.

In the final turn lane, the man in the German sedan looked impatient and distracted. He was furiously typing something into his phone. Worried he might pull ahead when the light changed leaving her stranded in traffic, Erma willed herself forward as quickly as her old legs would allow. She was right in front of his car when the hand stopped flashing. In an instant he'd have a green arrow. It had been a long time since she'd felt anything like a surge of adrenaline so she didn't expect one now. But when his horn blared the instant the light changed, she felt a surprising burst of anger and energy.

She stopped at the edge of his front bumper, thinking momentarily she would simply wave a fist at him. Another thought came. She pointed to the front of his expensive looking car, doing her best to feign surprise. Erma yelled, "Oh my! Fire. Your car is on fire! I see smoke."

The man rolled his window down and yelled, "Come on! Move it lady!"

"Your car, it's on fire! I see smoke from under the hood."

A clear look of panic replaced the impatience on the man's face. He popped the hood and practically flew out of the driver's door, his expensive suit fluttering in the hot breeze. Let him feel the wrath of the twelve drivers waiting in line behind him. He should know what it's like if only to make him more sensitive. Already the cacophony of horns had begun in the lane behind him. Welcome to the world where everyone moves faster than the speed of sensitivity, she thought. She'd expected him to run to the hood, instead he ran to the back of his car.

Erma was about to move to the safety of the highway divider to wait for the next cycle of the lights. But instead she watched as this impatient, self-important man ran from the back of his car with a small fire extinguisher. It was the quickest she'd moved in a month, but she left her walker behind and made it to the open door of his car as he fumbled with the hood latch. As soon as he had his head under the hood, she laid on the horn.

A moment later as the man stood cursing and holding the spot where his head hit the hood, a police car stopped on the other side of the intersection. Lights on, the officer stepped out of the cruiser. "Ma'am, are you OK?"

"Yes, I'm afraid I'm just too slow to make it across a street this wide these days."

"May I help you?" The officer said, offering his arm in a manner she hand't seen for forty years. It reminded her of her late husband, a gentleman to the end. She took the arm of the young policeman and allowed him to help her across the street. They moved as slowly as a sailing yacht on a smooth sea.

"Oh, my walker . . ."

"I'll bring it for you once you're safely across, ma'am."

"Thank you young man."

"My pleasure ma'am." he replied before turning back to the man in the expensive foreign sedan. "Sir, you need to move your car out of traffic. If you're still there when I'm done, I will write you a summons."

Erma smiled. She'd have one heckuva story for bridge tonight.