This eulogy was given at James Buckley’s funeral on August 24, 2023, funeral in Sharon, Conn.

We saw very little of our father when we were young. If he wasn’t in New York, he was out of the country. Even at home, he shared few meals with us. I remember thinking that he was like God – we never saw him but we knew he loved us.

In fact, my father wasn’t God, but he was something similar. He was a saint.

He tithed. He prayed daily and attended Sunday Mass. His humility belied his accomplishments. It was unthinkable that he cheat, lie, or manipulate. Money was unimportant to him except as a means to provide for his family. Whether before the limelight or a doorway, he always put others before himself.

He was a bedrock Catholic, but of an entirely catholic (catholic with a small c) disposition, respectful of people of every background or inclination. He carried on cordial relationships with people he had every reason to resent. When Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who had beaten Pop in the 1976 senatorial election, wrote to congratulate him on taking senior status in the Court, Pop responded, “I have long taken comfort in having lost to a man of your quality.”

Few could have predicted the course of his life. As a young man he was so shy that even at Yale, he would cross the street to avoid a passing acquaintance; he became a public figure. He was the naughtiest child in the family; he became a judge. (He once threw Aunt Priscilla’s doll in the fireplace, but seized with remorse, he gave her his firetruck.) He was the sickliest of them all; he become the family’s sole centenarian – and following hip-replacement surgery at 97, the surgeon congratulated him on his bone density.

He had a mind like a steel trap, but was a mediocre student and somehow never really locked into the details of popular culture. Once on a campaign trip to a Mets game, he turned to my mother and said, “Annie, how many touchdowns have we scored?” And when a reporter asked him to comment on Vince Lombardi’s death, he replied, “New Year’s Eve will never be the same.”

Gentleness was his warp and woof. He never raised his voice. When we misbehaved, one look of chagrin froze us in our tracks. I only heard him shout once. On Christmas Eve in 2011, my mother slept through the day. We simply couldn’t wake her up. Pop was crazed with anguish. He called Sharon Hospital to ask the doctor to come to the house. “I can’t,” he said. “It’s Christmas Eve and I’m the only doctor on duty. You’ll have to bring her here.” But Mom had stipulated no more hospitals, and he would not betray her wishes. He began yelling into the phone, even threatening the doctor with vague legal consequences, but the doctor persisted. When at last Pop hung up, he collapsed into a chair and wept. How he loved his Annie. And what a display from someone who rarely showed emotion.

Our lives had changed entirely in 2006 after Mom had her accident. Her spinal-chord injury had compromised her limbs and lungs. Her voice had shrunk to a low whisper, and she was stripped of the sparkling charisma Pop had in some sense hidden behind for so long.

This is when we really began to get to know him, on his own. We discovered his humor, absolutely a match for Mom’s. His empathy. His rare appreciation for small kindnesses. His valiance facing the ravages of age. He never complained.

With time, his natural reticence mellowed. He told us often that he loved us. I would return to France after visits with him, and when friends asked me how he was, all I could say was that he was so, so sweet.

He had an astonishingly broad network of family and friends. Sharon and Bethesda saw a parade of visits from former clerks, colleagues, Yale classmates, and campaign volunteers. He seemed to have a thing with his nieces. A clutch of Connecticut nieces regularly brought him lunch. His niece Aloise called him every day at 5 p.m. to chat and pray. How his eyes lit up when the phone rang! Still another niece, Maureen, would take him to lunch every Thursday, do errands, and visit the jewels of greater Washington. At Christmastime his kitchen counter was unusable for the stacks of cards, gifts of books and wine, Christmas cookies, chocolate-covered almonds, and cakes.

The last time he told he loved me was a week ago in the hospital. By then he could neither swallow nor speak. His eyes were closed, he was in great pain. I was holding his hand and reading Psalm 23 aloud. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want . . .

He squeezed my hand, at first long and tight, then in a drumroll of short tugs.

I love you, he was saying. For ever and ever, until Kingdom come.

Adieu, gentle man. Rest in peace.

Priscilla Buckley II is the daughter of James L. Buckley. For other tributes, see here.