WICHITA FALLS (KFDX/KJTL) — Christmas came early for a local man whose year has been struck with tragedy.

“He has been there for his family his whole life,” Alan Carroll’s daughter, Amanda Kirkland said. “He’s the rock, he provides, he’s always the funny one also.”

Not only is Alan the rock to his family, he’s also the rock to his workplace.

“He’s someone that is just extremely dependable and just one of the rocks we have here as far as one of our employees,” Alan’s co-worker Tony Weary said.

Alan has been a janitor at Advanced Rehab on Kemp St. for the past two years.

“It’s a nice place,” Alan said. “Everyone is really nice to you and treats you pretty much like family here.”

This holiday season has been very tough as his wife came down sick a little more than two months ago.

“She had been sick for about a month,” Alan said. “They thought she had bronchitis and two weeks later they did a chest x-ray and found she actually had lung cancer which was inoperable. It just kept getting worse and they finally put her in hospice.”

Every day for the next four days, Alan was there, right by his wife’s bedside until she took her last breath. On top of losing the love of his life of 43 years, Alan now has a mountain of medical bills.

So on Monday, we decided to head to his work and surprise him as our next Christmas Came Early recipient.

“Alan, Steve Fairchild with Hamilton Bryan,” Steve Fairchild said. “On behalf of Hamilton Bryan and KFDX, we would like to give you a small Christmas Came Early gift.”
“Well, thank you very much,” Alan said.
“We hope you can put that to good use, sir,” Steve said.
“I can, thank you,” Alan said.
“Happy holidays to you sir,” Steve said.
“Thank you very much,” Alan said.

While he was surprised, he said he is so thankful someone would think of him for this gift.

“It’s unbelievable this time of year,” Alan said. “Especially what’s happened and it’s just hard. Hard for me to talk about it.”

Even though this $300 won’t heal his broken heart, maybe it could be a little bright spot during this very difficult holiday season.

Alan said he has five grandkids and he’s going to use the money on them this holiday season.

We have one more Christmas Came Early so you still have a little bit of time if you would like to submit someone to be our next recipient, click here.