Old Jim In His Eighties Poem by Francis Duggan

Though for many years in their grave they do lay
Old Jim in his eighties his hair silver gray
Does talk of his father and mother today
As if they are living and healthy and feeling okay

Kate the woman he married in an asylum died
His sadness at this he still struggles to hide
He loves her in death as he loved her in life
And he still describes her as his beautiful wife

The good and the bad sides of life Jim has seen
Their only child a daughter Anna died when she was nineteen
She did not live to make Kate a grandmother and Jim a granddad
But you never hear him say that life has treated him bad

I often meet Jim in the park walking his white and brown jack Russell terrier Jack
He says of my little dog in my life of love I do not lack
That his two year old canine is his best friend
And that for good company and friendship on him he can depend

The gray haired old fellow Jim is eighty five
He says at his age he feels happy to be alive
His physical best years are in the long gone
But Jim does love life and he wants to live on.