TRIBUTE TO BUCK Page 9 of 11
EPILOGUE
On the last weekend in June 1971, we had a reunion of the immediate family at my house to celebrate dad�s eightieth birthday. The Missouri French loved family social gatherings and he enjoyed this one. We didn�t have gambling or strong drink but there were activities inside and out: great food, games, singing, much visiting between families and home movies. I had edited and spliced together years of 8 mm film and kept the film on continuous showings: pictures when mother was alive, pictures of large family gatherings, and babies growing up. Pictures of a warmer time. When it came time to unwrap birthday gifts, the poem was given in a frame, brown ink on a parchment paper. I think he liked it.
Mother had been gone for a year and a half and Dad�s last years were lonely. He, too quickly, sold his little farm and just as quickly felt homeless. �I do not have a home of my own anymore,� he wrote in a dairy. And another place, �I should have kept my home till death!�
I tried to visit him on weekends and he maintained his dry wit and sense of humor. The early winter of �79, he gave up driving and I knew that was his way of preparing himself for the end. This presented practical problems for him too, because his room was some distance from favorite eating places - - and ice was coming.
On the weekend of December 9, I went to ask him to come live with us. �I won�t be any trouble,� he quickly responded. �You have my word on it.� For a moment I was silent, choked with emotion - - and then very angry with myself. Why hadn�t I invited him to make his home with me years ago? And I thought of Robert Frost�s great definition of home: �Home is where - - when ya hav to go there - - they hav ta take ya in� or �I should have called it something ya somehow haven�t ta deserve.�
Dad deserved better from me!
Those last months were pleasant - - together at Christmas and afterwards gathered around a toasty fire every winter evening. He loved to talk and eat and he�d laugh out loud at our son, wearing the Siamese cat for a collar - - but a cough persisted: fluid building in the lungs, our internist said.
Early on the morning of March 29, 1980, Dad died in the bathroom but fully dressed - - just as his dad had, almost fifty years earlier. He was gone before he hit the floor.
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