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This individual has long been known as a larger than life character. Sharp and not prone to sentiment – and hardly ever declining to an extra drink. At family parties, he is the person chatting about the most recent controversy to befall a member of parliament, or entertaining us with stories of the shameless infidelity of various Sheffield Wednesday players for forty years.

It was common for us to pass the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. However, one holiday season, about 10 years ago, when he was planning to join family abroad, he fell down the stairs, holding a drink in one hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and broke his ribs. He was treated at the hospital and told him not to fly. Thus, he found himself back with us, making the best of it, but appearing more and more unwell.

The Morning Rolled On

Time passed, yet the stories were not coming in their typical fashion. He maintained that he felt alright but he didn’t look it. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, gingerly, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.

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

We thought about calling an ambulance, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day?

A Rapid Decline

When we finally reached the hospital, he’d gone from poorly to hardly aware. Other outpatients helped us get him to a ward, where the generic smell of hospital food and wind filled the air.

What was distinct, however, was the mood. People were making brave attempts at Christmas spirit everywhere you looked, notwithstanding the fundamental depressing and institutional feel; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on tables next to the beds.

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

Heading Home for Leftovers

Once the permitted time ended, we returned home to chilled holiday sides and Christmas telly. We watched something daft 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 it had begun to snow, and I remember experiencing a letdown – did we lose the holiday?

Recovery and Retrospection

While our friend did get better in time, 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 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 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”.