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Our family friend has always been a truly outsized personality. Clever and unemotional – and not one to say no to a further glass. Whenever our families celebrated, he’s the one gossiping about the latest scandal to involve a member of parliament, or entertaining us with stories of the notorious womanizing of assorted players from the local club over the past 40 years.

We would often spend Christmas morning with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. However, one holiday season, some ten years back, when he was planning to join family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, holding a drink in one hand, suitcase in the other, and fractured his ribs. Medical staff had treated him and told him not to fly. So, here he was back with us, trying to cope, but looking increasingly peaky.

The Morning Rolled On

The hours went by, however, the anecdotes weren’t flowing like they normally did. He maintained that he felt alright but his appearance suggested otherwise. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.

So, before I’d so much as don any celebratory headwear, we resolved to get him to the hospital.

We considered summoning an ambulance, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?

A Rapid Decline

Upon our arrival, he’d gone from poorly to hardly aware. Fellow patients assisted us guide him to a ward, where the characteristic scent of hospital food and wind filled the air.

Different though, was the spirit. One could see valiant efforts at holiday cheer in every direction, despite the underlying clinical and somber atmosphere; tinsel hung from drip stands and portions of holiday pudding went cold on bedside tables.

Upbeat nursing staff, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were working diligently and using that charming colloquial address so particular to the area: “duck”.

A Quiet Journey Back

Once the permitted time ended, we headed home to cold bread sauce and holiday television. We saw a lighthearted program on television, probably Agatha Christie, and took part in a more foolish pastime, such as a regionally-themed property trading game.

The hour was already advanced, and snowing, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – did we lose the holiday?

Healing and Reflection

Although our friend eventually recovered, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and later developed a serious circulatory condition. And, while that Christmas isn’t a personal favourite, it has entered into our family history as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

How factual that statement is, or involves a degree of exaggeration, I am not in a position to judge, but hearing it told each year has definitely been good for my self-esteem. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.