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This individual has long been known as a bigger-than-life personality. Clever and unemotional – and hardly ever declining to a further glass. At family parties, he’s the one discussing the most recent controversy to involve a local MP, or entertaining us with stories of the shameless infidelity of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday for forty years.

We would often spend Christmas morning with him and his family, then departing for our own celebrations. However, one holiday season, about 10 years ago, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he tumbled down the staircase, holding a drink in one hand, his luggage in the other, and broke his ribs. The hospital had patched him up and told him not to fly. So, here he was back with us, making the best of it, but seeming progressively worse.

The Morning Rolled On

The hours went by, however, the humorous tales were absent in their typical fashion. He insisted he was fine but he didn’t look it. He tried to make it upstairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.

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

We thought about calling an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?

A Deteriorating Condition

Upon our arrival, he had moved from being poorly to hardly aware. Fellow patients assisted us guide him to a ward, where the distinctive odor of clinical cuisine and atmosphere was noticeable.

What was distinct, however, was the mood. One could see valiant efforts at holiday cheer everywhere you looked, despite the underlying sterile and miserable mood; decorations dangled from IV poles and portions of holiday pudding went cold on nightstands.

Upbeat nursing staff, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be at home, were moving busily and using that charming colloquial address so particular to the area: “duck”.

A Quiet Journey Back

After our time at the hospital concluded, we returned home to cold bread sauce and holiday television. We watched something daft on television, likely a mystery drama, and took part in a more foolish pastime, such as a local version of the board game.

By then it was quite late, and snowing, and I remember having a sense of anticlimax – had we missed Christmas?

Healing and Reflection

Even though he ultimately healed, he had actually punctured a lung and subsequently contracted a serious circulatory condition. And, although that holiday isn’t a personal favourite, it has gone down in family lore as “the Christmas I saved a life”.

Whether that’s strictly true, or contains some artistic license, I am not in a position to judge, but hearing it told each year has definitely been good for my self-esteem. And, as our friend always says: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.