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Our family friend has always been a truly outsized character. Clever and unemotional – and hardly ever declining to another brandy. During family gatherings, he’s the one gossiping about the latest scandal to befall a local MP, or amusing us with accounts of the notorious womanizing of assorted players from the local club during the last four decades.

It was common for us to pass the morning of Christmas Day with him and his family, before going our separate ways. But, one Christmas, some ten years back, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he fell down the stairs, whisky in one hand, suitcase in the other, and fractured his ribs. He was treated at the hospital and advised against air travel. Thus, he found himself back with us, making the best of it, but seeming progressively worse.

The Day Progressed

The morning rolled on but the humorous tales were absent like they normally did. He was convinced he was OK but his appearance suggested otherwise. He attempted to go upstairs for a nap but found he could not; 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, my mother and I made the choice to get him to the hospital.

We considered summoning an ambulance, but how long would that take on Christmas Day?

A Deteriorating Condition

Upon our arrival, his state had progressed from peaky to barely responsive. Fellow patients assisted us help him reach a treatment area, where the characteristic scent of institutional meals and air permeated the space.

The atmosphere, however, was unique. There were heroic attempts at festive gaiety everywhere you looked, even with the pervasive clinical and somber atmosphere; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and dishes of festive dessert sat uneaten on nightstands.

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

Heading Home for Leftovers

Once the permitted time ended, we headed home to lukewarm condiments and holiday television. We viewed something silly on television, probably Agatha Christie, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.

The hour was already advanced, and it had begun to snow, and I remember feeling deflated – had we missed Christmas?

Recovery and Retrospection

While our friend did get better in time, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and later developed deep vein thrombosis. 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”.

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. And, as our friend always says: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.