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Our family friend has always been a larger than life figure. Witty, unsentimental – and not one to say no to a further glass. At family parties, he is the person chatting about the latest scandal to catch up with a local MP, or entertaining us with stories of the notorious womanizing of assorted players from the local club for forty years.

We would often spend Christmas morning with him and his family, before going our separate ways. Yet, on a particular Christmas, roughly a decade past, when he was planning to join family abroad, he fell down the stairs, whisky in one hand, suitcase in the other, and broke his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and advised against air travel. Consequently, he ended up back with us, doing his best to manage, but looking increasingly peaky.

As Time Passed

The morning rolled on but the stories were not coming like they normally did. He was convinced he was OK but his appearance suggested otherwise. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, cautiously, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.

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

The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?

A Rapid Decline

By the time we got there, he’d gone from peaky to barely responsive. Other outpatients helped us help him reach a treatment area, where the distinctive odor of clinical cuisine and atmosphere permeated the space.

The atmosphere, however, was unique. People were making brave attempts at Christmas spirit in every direction, even with the pervasive sterile and miserable mood; tinsel hung from drip stands and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on nightstands.

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

A Quiet Journey Back

Once the permitted time ended, we headed home to cold bread sauce and Christmas telly. We watched something daft on television, perhaps a detective story, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as a local version of the board game.

The hour was already advanced, and it had begun to snow, and I remember feeling deflated – was Christmas effectively over for us?

Healing and Reflection

While our friend did get better in time, he had truly experienced a lung puncture and subsequently contracted a serious circulatory condition. And, although that holiday isn’t a personal favourite, it has entered into our family history as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

Whether that’s strictly true, or involves a degree of exaggeration, is not for me to definitively say, but the story’s yearly repetition certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.