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Our family friend has always been a larger than life personality. Sharp and not prone to sentiment – and never one to refuse to a further glass. During family gatherings, he’s the one discussing the most recent controversy to involve a regional politician, or entertaining us with stories of the shameless infidelity of assorted players from the local club during the last four decades.

Frequently, we would share the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. Yet, on a particular Christmas, some ten years back, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he fell down the stairs, holding a drink in one hand, his luggage in the other, and fractured his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and told him not to fly. Thus, he found himself back with us, making the best of it, but looking increasingly peaky.

The Morning Rolled On

Time passed, yet the anecdotes weren’t flowing in their typical fashion. He was convinced he was OK but his condition seemed to contradict this. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.

So, before I’d so much as put on a festive hat, my mum and I decided to drive him to the emergency room.

We thought about calling an ambulance, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?

A Deteriorating Condition

Upon our arrival, he’d gone from poorly to hardly aware. 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. There were heroic attempts at holiday cheer everywhere you looked, even with the pervasive sterile and miserable mood; decorations dangled from IV poles and portions of holiday pudding went cold on nightstands.

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

Heading Home for Leftovers

Once the permitted time ended, we returned home to cold bread sauce and Christmas telly. We saw a lighthearted program on television, perhaps a detective story, and played something even dafter, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.

By then it was quite late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember experiencing a letdown – was Christmas effectively over for us?

Healing and Reflection

Even though he ultimately healed, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and later developed a serious circulatory condition. And, even if that particular Christmas isn’t a personal favourite, it has gone down in family lore as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

If that is completely accurate, or contains some artistic license, is not for me to definitively say, but the story’s yearly repetition certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. In keeping with our friend’s motto: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.