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Our family friend has always been a truly outsized character. Witty, unsentimental – and not one to say no to another brandy. During family gatherings, he’s the one chatting about the latest scandal to befall a regional politician, or regaling us with tales of the outrageous philandering of assorted players from the local club for forty years.

We would often spend the holiday morning with him and his family, before going our separate ways. But, one Christmas, about 10 years ago, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, whisky in one hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and sustained broken ribs. The hospital had patched him up and told him not to fly. Consequently, he ended up back with us, doing his best to manage, but seeming progressively worse.

As Time Passed

Time passed, yet the humorous tales were absent in their typical fashion. He was convinced he was OK but he didn’t look it. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and was unsuccessful.

Therefore, before I could even don any celebratory headwear, my mother and I made the choice to take him to A&E.

The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?

A Deteriorating Condition

By the time we got there, he had moved from being peaky to barely responsive. Fellow patients assisted us get him to a ward, where the distinctive odor of hospital food and wind filled the air.

What was distinct, however, was the mood. People were making brave attempts at festive gaiety 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.

Cheerful nurses, who certainly would have chosen to be at home, were bustling about and using that charming colloquial address so peculiar to the area: “duck”.

A Quiet Journey Back

When visiting hours were over, we returned home to lukewarm condiments and festive TV programming. We watched something daft on television, likely a mystery drama, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as a local version of the board game.

It was already late, and it had begun to snow, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – did we lose the holiday?

Healing and Reflection

Although our friend eventually recovered, he had actually punctured a lung and went on to get DVT. And, even if that particular Christmas is not my most cherished memory, it has gone down in family lore as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

How factual that statement is, or involves a degree of exaggeration, is not for me to definitively say, but its annual retelling certainly hasn’t hurt my ego. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.