Day Four

The 12 Days of an Alternative Christmas

For the loved one in hospital and ill health.

Hospitals change the shape of time and how we experience it, days blur, nights stretch, everything becomes measured by the next doctor’s round or update, waiting and waiting.

Christmas does not pause for this.

The decorations still go up.
The music still plays.
The world keeps moving while you sit beside a bed and hope quietly. People invite you to their Christmas being kind, what do you do?

If someone you love is in hospital this Christmas, you are living in two worlds at once.

One where you are expected to show up and attend.
One where you fight to keep plans.
To be present in rooms that feel far away from where your heart actually is.

And another where everything feels fragile.

Munroe Bergdorf often speaks about dignity. About the right to be seen fully, especially when the body is under scrutiny and stress.

Ill health strips away the performance.
There is no energy for pretending and no patience for small talk.

There is just care and fear.
Love that feels exposed and at full stretch.
You might feel guilt for leaving the hospital to be elsewhere.
Guilt for wishing you could leave.
Guilt for not knowing which place you are supposed to be.
All of that can exist at the same time.
It is an and.

This post is not here to offer comfort clichés.
It is not telling you to stay positive.
It is here to say that being there matters.
Even when you feel helpless.
Even when all you can do is sit and wait.
Presence is not measured by cheerfulness.
It is measured by staying.

If this Christmas looks nothing like the version being advertised, that does not mean it is empty.

It means it is real.

This series is for the people carrying quiet worry and quiet love.

I am writing this as someone who does not have it all together.
This is not positivity. It is presence.
If this landed, it is because you are not alone, even when it feels like you are. I wish you good health this Christmas.

Truly.

Dave
The and. team

Debbie Halls-Evans

PS.
I am writing this series because the non stop marketing campaigns and messaging of Christmas idealisms can leave a lot of people unseen.
This is not about doing more and not about fixing anyone.
It is an invitation to notice and to think and to see.
One day at a time.
This is Day Four.