I completely understand. What would you have done?

Dennis Bucy was afraid he was going to run out of time.

He’s been addicted to J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” since he passed up a gambling vacation in Lake Tahoe with his wife and daughter “back in the hippie days” to hole up and devour the entire trilogy plus “The Hobbit” in one week.

He was thrilled when Peter Jackson’s Oscar-winning movie versions started coming out. He and his grandson, Mark Blasini, 7, began a tradition of attending the movies together.

But when Bucy, 63, was diagnosed with terminal cancer about a year ago, he began to worry that he wouldn’t last until the concluding installment, “The Return of the King.”