This individual has long been known as a larger than life personality. Witty, unsentimental – and hardly ever declining to a further glass. Whenever our families celebrated, he would be the one chatting about the newest uproar to involve a regional politician, or amusing us with accounts of the notorious womanizing of various Sheffield Wednesday players during the last four decades.
Frequently, we would share Christmas morning with him and his family, before going our separate ways. However, one holiday season, about 10 years ago, when he was scheduled to meet family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, whisky in one hand, suitcase 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, trying to cope, but seeming progressively worse.
The Morning Rolled On
Time passed, yet the humorous tales were absent in their typical fashion. 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, cautiously, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.
Therefore, before I could even don any celebratory headwear, we resolved to get him to the hospital.
We thought about calling an ambulance, but how much of a delay would there be on Christmas Day?
A Rapid Decline
Upon our arrival, he’d gone from poorly to hardly aware. Fellow patients assisted 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. One could see valiant efforts at holiday cheer all around, even with the pervasive sterile and miserable mood; festive strands were attached to medical equipment and bowls of Christmas pudding congealed on bedside tables.
Upbeat nursing staff, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were bustling about and using that charming colloquial address so peculiar to the area: “duck”.
A Quiet Journey Back
After our time at the hospital concluded, we headed home to chilled holiday sides and Christmas telly. We watched something daft on television, probably Agatha Christie, and played something even dafter, such as a regionally-themed property trading game.
The hour was already advanced, and snowing, and I remember experiencing a letdown – did we lose the holiday?
The Aftermath and the Story
Although our friend eventually recovered, he had truly experienced a lung puncture and later developed a serious circulatory condition. And, although that holiday does not rank among my favorites, 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, I am not in a position to judge, but its annual retelling has done no damage to my pride. In keeping with our friend’s motto: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
