"The role of the presidency is to say, 'Grieve. In an appearance on Stephen Colbert's late-night show in 2020, he connected his personal experience to his political work, particularly as the country grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic. "I know from my experience how little words can mean at such a time but I know, as hard as it can be to believe, that time does heal," he wrote to her. Just under a month before the election, a 2002 apology letter Joe Biden sent to a woman - after his office continued to send letters to her late husband - went viral. In the decades since, Joe Biden has spoken candidly of what grief did to him and how that experience helped him relate to others' loss - to the torrent of anguish, anger and sadness that results.Īnecdotes of his empathy have drawn headlines over the years, with many resurfaced during his 2020 presidential campaign. Joseph on the Brandywine Catholic Church in Wilmington, De., Dec. PHOTO: President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden walk between tombstones to attend Mass at St. Nixon went on to say, of Joe Biden's wife, "I'm sure that she'll be watching you from now on. "I appreciate that very much," Joe Biden told him. "I know this is a very tragic day for you, but I wanted you to know that all of us here at the White House were thinking about you and praying for you and also for your two children," Nixon said.
Shortly after the crash, then-President Richard Nixon called Joe Biden, according to a recording at Nixon's presidential library. Their dad took his oath as a senator by their hospital bedsides. "And my two boys, but for the jaws of life and a rescue crew saving their life, would not have been around either."īeau and Hunter Biden were seriously injured after the wreck.
"My wife was killed and my daughter was killed," he continued then. A tractor trailer hit your wife and your three children while they were shopping,'" Biden recalled at an event in Newton, Iowa, during his 2020 campaign. She was so nervous, she said, 'You gotta come home. They put a pretty young woman on the phone. "I was down in Washington hiring staff and I got a phone call from a first responder. The 1972 crash, weeks after he won his first Senate race, also partially defined his career in Congress. The death of Joe Biden's wife, daughter and older son have long shaped his approach to grief and empathy, he has said. Joseph on the Brandywine Catholic Church on the anniversary of the deaths of the president's first wife, Neilia, and daughter Naomi, Delaware, Dec. President Joe Biden, first lady Jill Biden and other family members arrive at St.
He is also buried at the cemetery.PHOTO: U.S. After the service, the family walked out toward the graves carrying two large wreaths.īeau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015 at 46.
Joseph on the Brandywine Roman Catholic Church. Both women joined him on Sunday, as did Hunter and many of the president's grandchildren among others at St. Biden's raw openness around grief and his ability to empathize with fellow Americans who have experienced loss have become defining traits of his political career.īiden married Jill Jacobs in 1977 and they had a daughter, Ashley. But on the advice of other senators he stayed in office, commuting back and forth from Washington to Delaware. The tragedy almost prompted Biden, also age 30 when the accident happened, to give up his fledgling political career. The couple's two sons, Beau and Hunter, who were just about to turn 4 and 3 at the time, were also in the car and were seriously injured. 18 of that year as they went out to buy a Christmas tree. (AP) - President Joe Biden and his family held a private memorial service Sunday to mark the 50th anniversary of the car crash that killed his first wife and their baby daughter.īiden, who had just been elected to the Senate in November 1972, was not in the car when his wife, 30-year-old Neilia, and their 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, were broadsided by a tractor-trailer on Dec.