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Our family friend has always been a bigger-than-life figure. Clever and unemotional – and hardly ever declining to an extra drink. Whenever our families celebrated, he’s the one discussing the most recent controversy to catch up with a regional politician, or regaling us with tales of the notorious womanizing of various Sheffield Wednesday players for forty years.

Frequently, we would share the holiday morning with him and his family, before going our separate ways. However, one holiday season, about 10 years ago, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, holding a drink in one hand, his luggage in the other, and fractured his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and instructed him to avoid flying. Thus, he found himself back with us, making the best of it, but looking increasingly peaky.

As Time Passed

The hours went by, however, the stories were not coming as they usually were. He maintained that he felt alright but his appearance suggested otherwise. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but was unable to; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.

So, before I’d so much as placed a party hat on my head, my mother and I made the choice to drive him to the emergency room.

We thought about calling an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?

A Worrying Turn

When we finally reached the hospital, he’d gone from peaky to barely responsive. Fellow patients assisted us get him to a ward, where the generic smell of clinical cuisine and atmosphere was noticeable.

Different though, was the spirit. One could see valiant efforts at Christmas spirit in every direction, notwithstanding the fundamental depressing and institutional feel; tinsel hung from drip stands and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on nightstands.

Positive medical attendants, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were bustling about and using that great term of endearment so peculiar to the area: “duck”.

A Subdued Return Home

When visiting hours were over, we headed home to lukewarm condiments and festive TV programming. We saw a lighthearted program on television, probably Agatha Christie, and took part in a more foolish pastime, such as a local version of the board game.

The hour was already advanced, and snowing, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – was Christmas effectively over for us?

Healing and Reflection

Although our friend eventually recovered, he had truly experienced a lung puncture and later developed DVT. And, while that Christmas isn’t a personal favourite, it has become part of family legend as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

How factual that statement is, or contains some artistic license, I am not in a position to judge, but the story’s yearly repetition certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. And, as our friend always says: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.