Former Senator Atty. Joey Lina
FINDING ANSWERS
For Joe Biden who will lead the United States as its 46th president starting January 20, the ups and downs of life have been in extremes.
The exhilarating thrill of his political victories matched with unspeakable sorrow of personal tragedies prompted an aide to describe Biden as both the “unluckiest person” and “luckiest person” he has ever known.
I’ve learned a lot about President-elect Biden by following closely the recent US elections. I realized, for instance, that in defeating President Donald Trump, the 77-year-old former vice president is the oldest American to win the presidency, and that the over 74 million votes he got so far are more than those of any other president in US history, even exceeding the previous record set in 2008 by then President Barack Obama.
I also realized that aside from being the oldest US president at 78 when he assumes office, Biden had become the youngest US senator when, at age 29, he defeated a two-term incumbent Republican senator in 1972.
Lady Luck certainly smiled on him when he won a major political prize at such a young age, and also when he ultimately won the biggest prize of all – the presidency – even at his advanced age.
Yet, while he’s considered the luckiest person, he was also the unluckiest. A few weeks after winning as senator, Biden got devastating news: As his family was on the way home from Christmas shopping in Delaware, a tractor trailer smashed into their car, killing his wife Neilia and their 15-month-old daughter Naomi.
His two sons, four-year-old Beau and two-year-old Hunter, survived the crash and were seriously injured. But four decades later, Beau, who rose to become Delaware attorney general, died of brain cancer.
There’s no doubt the tragedies brought so much pain. Losing children can certainly break one’s spirit. The famous Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoesky (author of The Brothers Karamazov, Crime and Punishment) once said: “The soul is healed by being with children.” So if the offspring dies before parents which just isn’t natural, how do grieving souls heal?
With his wife and daughter gone in an instant in the 1972 tragedy, the depth of Biden’s pain was abysmal.
"I began to understand how despair led people to just cash in; how suicide wasn't just an option but a rational option," he said in a CNN documentary. "I thought about what it would be like just to go to the Delaware Memorial Bridge and just jump off and end it all.”
“But I'd look at Beau and Hunter asleep and wonder what new terrors their own dreams held, and wonder who would explain to my sons my being gone, too. And I knew I had no choice but to fight to stay alive," Biden said.
"The pain had seemed unbearable in the beginning, and it took me a long time to heal," Biden said. "But I did survive the punishing ordeal, I made it through."
How did he make it? "I've found that there's that famous phrase from Kierkegaard, 'Faith sees best in the dark'… The only way I've been able to deal with when my wife and my daughter were killed and my son died, I've only been able to deal with it by realizing they're part of my being. My son Beau is my soul,” Biden explained.
Beau’s death in 2015 affected Biden so much that he was not able to seek the presidency when Obama’s term ended. But he never forgot his son’s dying words.
"Because he asked me when he was dying, 'Promise me, Dad… Promise me, you'll stay engaged," Biden narrated. “He knew I'd take care of the family, but he worried what I would do is I would pull back and go into a shell and not do all the things I've done before. It took a long time for me to get to the point to realize that that purpose is the thing that would save me. And it has. And every morning I get up and I say to myself … I hope he's proud of me."
Biden’s wife and soon to be First Lady, Jill, describes how the president-elect picked himself up from the devastating loss of Beau, "Four days after Beau's funeral, I watched Joe shave and put on his suit. I saw him steel himself in the mirror, take a breath, put his shoulders back and walk out into a world empty of our son," she recalled. "He went back to work. That's just who he is. There are times when I couldn't imagine how he did it -- how he put one foot in front of the other and kept going -- but I've always understood why he did it."
With the tragedies that have befallen Biden, it is awe-inspiring how he managed to go on. “I know how mean, cruel, and unfair life can be sometimes… but I found the best way through pain, and loss and grief is to find purpose,” he said.
It’s now clear that the purpose he found is to become the Healer-in-Chief of a deeply divided nation. With his sense of empathy for others strengthened by personal tragedies, many believe Biden will succeed in his great purpose in life.
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