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\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s fifty years since I have felt alone,\u201d<\/p>\n he said, and told the story of the day<\/p>\n he went to see\u00a0The Guns of Navarone<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Before the days of text and mobile phone<\/p>\n you hand wrote letters when you were away<\/p>\n from loved ones, so they wouldn\u2019t feel alone.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He\u2019d written, but her answer hadn\u2019t shown,<\/p>\n and so he thought, to keep his blues at bay,<\/p>\n he\u2019d go and see\u00a0The Guns of Navarone<\/em>\u2014<\/p>\n <\/p>\n a classic film, and one that\u2019s still well-known.<\/p>\n He sat and watched the final credits play<\/p>\n and hadn\u2019t ever felt quite so alone.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n He walked back by the park, still on his own<\/p>\n and met his mum. He took great pains to say<\/p>\n how much he\u2019d liked\u00a0The Guns of Navarone<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n but was there now a letter back at home?<\/p>\n There was, and so he ran the rest of the way.<\/p>\n For fifty years he hasn\u2019t felt alone.<\/p>\n Today he hears\u00a0The Guns of Navarone<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n My father says it\u2019s worse than waiting<\/p>\n to learn she was dead, and at first<\/p>\n I silently demur, adding the silent codicil<\/p>\n <\/p>\n it depends where you were waiting\u2014<\/em><\/p>\n at home, with sherry and my mother\u2019s<\/p>\n best friend, or in hospital, waiting for her last breath,<\/p>\n <\/p>\n but then, into the second day of waiting\u2014<\/p>\n a pile-up of Easter Holiday deaths, her mad<\/p>\n tumble from bed awaiting the coroner\u2019s nod\u2014<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I start to agree. I feel like I\u2019m waiting<\/p>\n to return to life, to stop thinking<\/p>\n about death and its checklists.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The phone rings. It isn\u2019t them. I\u2019m waiting<\/p>\n to be able to remember the mother I knew,<\/p>\n not the frail ghost stuck with tubes, but the one<\/p>\n <\/p>\n who wrote the notes we examine while we\u2019re waiting\u2014<\/p>\n \u00a315 for Tony, call Dawn, email Peter,<\/em><\/p>\n Phoenix Club next Wed\u2014give Val a ride.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n My mother\u2019s handwriting,<\/p>\n forever now waiting to remind her.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Guns of Navarone, 1961 \u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s fifty years since I have felt alone,\u201d he said, and told the story of the day he went to see\u00a0The Guns of Navarone. Before the days of text and mobile phone you hand wrote letters when you were away from loved ones, so they wouldn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3848"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3856,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3848\/revisions\/3856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ducts.sundresspublications.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Waiting for the Death Certificate<\/strong><\/h4>\n