It was a terrible stunner Sunday morning to learn of the death of Beau Biden – stunning because I’d understood a brain lesion had been removed and he was doing fine.
At age 46, brain cancer took the life of Biden. It is yet another sad reminder that the “good die young.”
He is survived by wife Hallie and children Natalie, 11, and Hunter, 9. Other survivors are brother Hunter, sister Ashley, stepmother Jill and father Joe Biden, U.S. vice president.
And what a bleak blow Beau’s death must be for his father. Like the Kennedys, the Biden family has suffered cruel deaths. In 1972, Joe Biden, who had just been elected as U.S. senator from Delaware, was in Washington, D.C., forming his senatorial staff. One day in December, he got a phone call that instantly shattered his world into pieces. While doing Christmas shopping back home in Delaware, his wife and three children were in a station wagon when it was broadsided by a truck. Wife Neilia and daughter Naomi, 13-months old, were killed. The two young sons, Beau and Hunter, were severely injured.
At age 29, Biden’s elation about his senatorial success evaporated. He knew then – and now – that family is more important than anything. In emotional agony, Biden spent weeks at the bedside of his recuperating sons, torn between love for them and agony for the loss of his wife and daughter. His love for the sons gave him his reason to live, even though he seriously considered declining the senate job. Friends and colleagues convinced him otherwise. He took the oath of office at the hospital bedside of 4-year-old son Beau. What a heartrending irony that the son who survived that horrible accident died 42 years later, and the father who loved him so much had to watch him die. We who have not endured grief that badly have nothing to complain about.
By all accounts, Beau Biden was an outstanding man. He was elected twice as the attorney general for Delaware where he worked hard and fairly on issues that would benefit all. Like his father, he was a champion of “ordinary” working people, with an easy down-to-earth camaraderie among his constituents. Beau was the perfect example of “like father, like son.”
Like his father, he championed progressive Democratic causes to help the middle class, the working class and the struggling, disenfranchised poor. In 2003, Biden joined the National Guard and served for a year in Iraq in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. He is a recipient of the Bronze Star.
Before the brain cancer spread so rapidly, Beau had planned to run for governor of Delaware next year. What a shame that will not be. It’s very possible after his experiences as governor, Biden could have been a contender for the nation’s presidency. What a loss. Yet another hope dashed.
It often happens that family deaths can bring survivors closer together, and bonds among them become ever stronger. That is what happened for Biden and his remaining children. Now, the process of grieving and of bonding will begin again for Biden, his wife and two surviving children. When Biden talks about grief, we should all listen and heed his words because he knows what he’s talking about. A few years ago, in a speech, he said this:
“There will come a day when the thought of your son or daughter or your husband or wife brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye. It will happen. My prayer for you is that day will come sooner or later. But the only thing I have more experience than you in is this: I’m telling you it will come.”
