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Our family friend has always been a larger than life personality. Witty, unsentimental – and not one to say no to another brandy. During family gatherings, he is the person gossiping about the newest uproar to involve a local MP, or amusing us with accounts of the notorious womanizing of various Sheffield Wednesday players for forty years.

We would often spend the morning of Christmas Day 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, with a glass of whisky in hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and broke his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and told him not to fly. Consequently, he ended up back with us, making the best of it, but appearing more and more unwell.

As Time Passed

Time passed, yet the stories were not coming as they usually were. He maintained that he felt alright but he didn’t look it. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but found he could not; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and failed.

So, before I’d so much as put on a festive hat, my mum and I decided to take him to A&E.

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 peaky to barely responsive. People in the waiting room aided us get him to a ward, where the generic smell of institutional meals and air was noticeable.

Different though, was the spirit. One could see valiant efforts at holiday cheer everywhere you looked, notwithstanding the fundamental clinical and somber atmosphere; tinsel hung from drip stands and portions of holiday pudding went cold on bedside tables.

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

A Quiet Journey Back

When visiting hours were over, we headed home to chilled holiday sides and festive TV programming. We watched something daft on television, likely a mystery drama, and took part in a more foolish pastime, such as a regionally-themed property trading game.

It was already late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember experiencing a letdown – did we lose the holiday?

Recovery and Retrospection

Even though he ultimately healed, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and subsequently contracted a serious circulatory condition. And, while that Christmas does not rank among my favorites, it has become part of family legend as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

How factual that statement is, or a little bit of dramatic licence, I am not in a position to judge, but the story’s yearly repetition 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”.