Just about 23 years ago...

Following excerpted from "Flashbacks: Marching Towards Midlife" - a work in progress...

Christmas 1986

“I can’t believe they do this for everyone,” Megan slurred after waking to a miniature Christmas tree on the table beside her hospital bed, a tree adorned in a rather uniquely-personalized manner - with little bottles of Baileys.

But I’m getting ahead of myself (again, and so soon)…

Megan, still a Junior at Georgetown at the time, had a job (of sorts) at Saxa’s, the little hole-in-the-wall student store in the basement of the Healy building. Meanwhile, I was six months into a job at Basis Point, account managering or something or other, not too far from campus in the new Washington Harbour complex on K Street. I can’t recall the time of day, nor who it was that called from Saxa’s, but I do recall how desperate the voice was that told me Megan had been hurt, badly, and that I should get to the hospital.

Funnily enough, while twice the distance from the hospital, my cab and I got there before Megan and the ambulance. A bit frantic that I couldn’t find her, I became a bit more so when they carried her in, arm wrapped, blood pretty much drenching her. Seems she’d been in the Saxa’s stock room stacking, counting or, well, stocking, when she turned and inadvertently stuck her arm into a large industrial venting fan set in the wall (sadly someone had neglected to install a protective grate). Sliced her arm almost right off – straight through the bone. Messy.

After checking her in at the hospital, I had the first of what over the years would be multiple Megan health-related chats with my not-yet-in-laws’. They wondered if they should come down to D.C. I assured them no need (what the hell did I know) – I’d look after her…

…Which, for the next few days, I did - at least in terms of visiting her in the hospital every day. Turns out that fixing up the wrist wasn’t as big a deal as the infection that resulted from the beyond-filthy fan blade that had sliced through her arm. Needless to say, Megan was heavily medicated and a bit out of it for a while, including that Christmas morning when she woke to find and misinterpret the miniature tree I’d brought in, adding my own decorative touches, including the little mini bottles of Baileys, a favourite of Megan’s.

Not long after Christmas Megan was released, and we flew up to Connecticut to spend a belated holiday with her family - the first of many of our remarkably generous Walsh Christmases. One of my gifts was a bottle of Dom, which Megan and I kept for many years, not popping it until New Year's eve 1991, mere days before we returned to Washington after two years in Ecuador. But, again (again), I’m getting ahead of myself...