Promise Me, Dad

by Joe Biden

  * * *

  When it was all finally behind us, Saturday night, June 6, I found myself sitting alone in my library. Beau had been gone for exactly a week, but I could still feel his presence. It doesn’t seem real yet, I wrote in my diary that night. I was so intent on this being dignified and powerful for Beau’s memory, I willed myself to not focus on the enormity, on the black hole in my chest, pulling me in. By focusing on Hunt and Ash I’ve been able to pretend Beau is still with me. Even today, with the exception of [the rendition of] the song “Bring Him Home” I put Beau in the middle of everything, as if he and I were pulling all of this together.

  Sitting there, reflecting on the past three days, I had flashes of incredible pride in my son and my family; a sense of accomplishment threaded through my wall of grief. Beau “cared deeply for his fellow human beings and always treated everyone with dignity and respect,” General Odierno had said in his funeral speech. “He had a natural charisma that few people possess. People willingly wanted to follow him, completely trusted his judgment, and believed in him.” I was still moved by the thought of Barack’s willingness to let go and show the extraordinary depth of his emotion in his eulogy for Beau. We had been through a lot together, but I felt closer to the president that day in St. Anthony’s, and more appreciative of his friendship, than ever before. “Michelle and I and Sasha and Malia, we’ve become part of the Biden clan, we’re honorary members now,” he said. “And the Biden family rule applies: We’re always here for you. We always will be. My word as a Biden.”

  When Ashley and Hunt ascended to the altar there was an absolute hush in the congregation. Everyone in the audience knew the depth of the loss each of them felt, and I knew from my own experience how difficult it is to eulogize someone you adore. They were in such pain, and summoning composure required remarkable courage. I have never been prouder of my son and daughter. When they spoke of their brother, there was something almost holy about it—as if they were willing their own Trinity to abide. “It’s impossible to talk about Beau without talking about Hunter,” Ashley told the gathering, in a speech she insisted on writing herself. “Hunter was the wind beneath Beau’s wings. Hunt gave him the courage and the confidence to fly.… There wasn’t one decision where Hunter wasn’t consulted first, not one day that passed where they didn’t speak, and not one road traveled where they weren’t each other’s copilots. Hunter was Beau’s confidant. His home.

  “When I was born, I was welcomed with open arms and held tightly by both Beau-y and Hunt-y, as I adoringly called them my whole life. The boys named me. I was theirs and I felt as though they were mine.”

  Hunter stood by Ashley as she spoke, and when he stepped up to the microphone, Ashley remained to stand by her brother while he did the thank-yous on behalf of the entire family. “The first memory I have is of lying in a hospital bed next to my brother,” Hunter began, recounting the days they were together in the hospital, recovering from the car accident that had taken the lives of their mother and sister. “I was almost three years old. I remember my brother, who was one year and one day older than me, holding my hand, staring into my eyes, saying, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you,’ over and over and over again. And in the forty-two years since, he never stopped holding my hand, he never stopped telling me just how much he loves me. But mine wasn’t the only hand Beau held. Beau’s was the hand everyone reached for in their time of need. Beau’s was the hand that was reaching for yours before you even had to ask.” Hunter spoke for almost twenty-five minutes, about Beau’s journey through life and all the people he touched. He captured the essence of his brother, without a single false note. Hunter concluded, “He held so many hands. Survivors of abuse, parents of his fallen brothers and sisters in uniform, victims of violent crime in his beloved city of Wilmington. That’s my brother’s story; there are thousands of people telling those stories right now. Telling the same story, about when Beau Biden held their hand. My only claim on my brother is that he held my hand first.…

  “And as it began, so did it end. His family surrounded him, everyone holding on to him, each of us desperately holding him. Each of us saying, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’ And I held his hand, and he took his last breath, and I know that I was loved. And I know that his hand will never leave mine.”

  * * *

  I am blessed with a magnificent family. I remember thinking how lucky we were, just to be able to physically hold on to one another through the three days of public ceremonies. When one of us flagged or started to lose composure, there was always somebody there for support. “C’mon, Dad,” I heard Hunt say when he noticed me looking up to the ceiling and saw my shoulders start to shake. It is a blessing to be able to share the feeling of enveloping grief, to have people you love nearby to absorb some of the worst pain. But I have come to understand that nobody can really take away all the pain, no matter how close. There are times when each of us must bear the burden of loss alone, and in his or her own way. The people who really understand that are the people carrying those burdens, too. And they are another real source of solace. Of all the calls and visits in that difficult week, all the heartfelt condolences and the well-wishes from the thousands of people who filed through the receiving lines, one stood out. It happened at the public wake, at St. Anthony’s in Wilmington, on the day before the funeral mass. I was there with Jill and the rest of the family for hours, standing by Beau’s casket, as thousands of friends, acquaintances, and supporters filed by. People came from all over the country—including the nurses from Walter Reed and Jefferson hospitals—but most were from Delaware. Our home state is a small place, and I had been there for many years, so I recognized most of the mourners by face, if not by name. But at one point, I looked up and saw in the line, approaching me, Wei Tang Liu, the father of the Chinese American police officer who had been killed on duty in New York City five months earlier. He and his wife had made the three-hour drive from their home in Brooklyn to Wilmington, then stood for hours in a line of people that snaked for blocks down the sidewalk, into the church, and right up to Beau’s coffin.

  Wei Tang Liu did not try to speak, and neither did I. He still didn’t have the English, and I still didn’t have the Cantonese. He just walked up and gave me a hug. It meant so much to me to be in the embrace of somebody who understood. He held on to me, silently, and wouldn’t let go. This was not, as it had been the last time we met, for him. This was for me. “Thank you” was all I could say. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Can You Stay?

  I had been here before and knew what to expect. Shock creates an initial numbness that wears away. The pain comes then, and it sharpens. The hurt is a physical presence, and it never leaves you. As when I lost Neilia and Naomi forty-three years earlier, it felt like there was a tiny dark hole in the middle of my chest, and I knew if I dwelled on its presence, it would grow until it threatened to suck my entire being down into it. There were times when it seemed easier to just disappear into that void, into the merciful absence of pain. I remember not being able to take a long, deep breath for months. My religious faith provided some refuge from the pain. I’ve always found comfort in the ritual associated with my Catholicism. I find the rosary soothing. It’s almost like my meditation. And mass is a place I go to be by myself, even in the middle of the crowd. I always feel alone, just me and God. When I pray, I find myself not only praying to God, but praying to Neilia and to my mom to intercede with God for me. It’s a way of reminding myself that they are still a part of me, still inside me. And in the first hours after we lost Beau, I began to talk to him, too. It was my way to remind myself that he was still here with me, too.

  Ashley captured the truth of it, and the need of it, at the end of her eulogy. “You will be with us for every decision we make in moments of sadness and struggle, and celebration and joy,” she said of Beau, and I knew she was speaking directly to me and the rest of our family. “We will see you everywhere we go, in the beaut
y of nature, in a smile from strangers, and in your beautiful children, who we will take care of like you took care of all of us. You were etched in every fiber of our being. You are the bone of our bones, the flesh of our flesh, and blood of our blood. You are ever present in our lives, today, tomorrow, and forever.”

  Whenever I thought of those words, the thought crossed my mind: as long as I have Hunt, I have Beau. They were inseparable in life and they are inseparable in death. Even now, Beau was present for me. He was more than present. He was the voice in my head. The words I kept replaying, over and over, were his. Beau and Hallie had invited us over to dinner one evening the previous fall when the physical effects of the cancer were becoming undeniable. Jill had arrived on a train from Wilmington, having finished a day of teaching, and came straight to the house in her work clothes. After we were finished eating she said she wanted to go home and change into something more comfortable. “Can you stay, Dad?” Beau asked me. “Hallie and I want to talk to you.”

  He asked Hallie to take Natalie and Hunter upstairs, and waited for her to return. The two of them sat across from me at their long narrow table. “Dad, look,” he said. “I know no one in the whole world loves me as much as you do. I know that.

  “But Dad, look at me. Look at me. I’m going to be okay no matter what happens. I’m going to be okay, Dad. I promise you.” I was jolted by the realization that my son was beginning to make peace with his own death. Then he leaned across the table and put his hand on my arm. “But you’ve got to promise me, Dad, that no matter what happens, you’re going to be all right. Give me your word, Dad, that you’re going to be all right. Promise me, Dad.”

  “I’m going to be okay, Beau,” I said, but that wasn’t enough for him.

  “No, Dad,” he said. “Give me your word as a Biden. Give me your word, Dad. Promise me, Dad.”

  I promised.

  * * *

  Nobody at the White House expected me to be back at work right away. President Obama and his closest aides went out of the way to signal to me in private and in public that they would continue to give me whatever space and time I needed to heal. “It doesn’t end when the service ends—and in a sense that’s the beginning,” the president’s friend and close adviser Valerie Jarrett told a reporter. “He will be surrounded with love and support and given whatever he needs. It’s a long grieving process, and I think part of friendship is understanding that, and being there for the long haul.” I also had an incredible foreign policy team that had continued to do what needed to be done in my absence. My national security adviser, Colin Kahl, was overseeing everything, with particular focus on Iraq. Michael Carpenter was keeping the watch on Ukraine; Juan Gonzalez on the Northern Triangle. There were Victoria Nuland at the State Department and Charlie Kupchan on the White House NSC staff handling Russia; Brett McGurk in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey; Jeffrey Prescott in the Far East; Amos Hochstein on energy policy around the world. I had incredible support, and they would have carried the ball for as long as I needed them to. But I could not sit home with my grief. I knew I had to be engaged.

  I decided I would report for duty four days after Beau’s service to let the president know I was ready to get back to work. I needed to be working, to be occupied. For my own sanity, I needed to keep busy. The president was just back from the G-7 summit in Germany, where he had pressed Chancellor Merkel and other European leaders to continue and even enlarge the economic sanctions against Russia until Putin lived up to the Minsk cease-fire agreement and backed off in Ukraine. I really appreciated how forcefully the president had staked out the ground. “Russia has essentially thumbed their nose at the commitments that they made,” the president’s chief spokesman announced. “Russia’s failure to live up to those commitments is what leads to their increasing isolation and the increasing costs being imposed on their economy.” Prime Minister Yatsenyuk was visiting Washington that day, and I needed to be there to deliver the message that we were standing by the Ukrainian people and their government, but also to make sure he understood that he and Poroshenko needed to speed up anticorruption reforms if they wanted continued assistance.

  Two days later I was scheduled to meet with the speaker of the Iraqi Council of Representatives, Salim al-Jabouri, the political leader of the Sunnis. The fall of Ramadi had put intense pressure on the Abadi government. But President Obama had strengthened his commitment to Jabouri and to Abadi. He had just authorized the risky deployment of U.S. military advisers to an air base within fifteen miles of Ramadi to help mobilize, train, and equip Sunni tribal fighters for the coming counterattack. So I wanted to make sure Jabouri heard from me the critical importance of Iraqi unity in the face of the continuing ISIL threat.

  Five days after the Jabouri meeting, I was to receive Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández in Washington to show him our administration remained serious about providing assistance if they remained serious about implementing the reforms we had agreed on in Guatemala City in early March. I needed to get back up to speed on everything.

  When I walked back into the office on Wednesday, June 10, it felt like Beau was watching and talking to me. “Dad, don’t let them see your pain, Dad,” he would say. “Get up. One foot in front of the other. Keep moving.”

  President Obama and I had lunch that first day, right before my meeting with Arseniy Yatsenyuk. The president had come to know me pretty well. He knew it would help me to stay deeply involved in our work, to keep my focus on something other than Beau. So he stuck to business that day, and we spent almost the entire lunch talking about our foreign policy goals. But when I reported to him what my team and I had been doing in Ukraine, Iraq, and the Northern Triangle, I think he was surprised at how engaged I was. The president asked me to think about what other specific assignments I wanted for our last eighteen months in office, what new challenges I wanted to tackle. I knew I wanted to finish what I had started in Ukraine, Iraq, and the Northern Triangle, but I wasn’t sure exactly what the near future held for me. So I told him I would get back to him.

  * * *

  There were more than seventy thousand notes and letters of condolence waiting for me at the White House, along with what had to be close to a thousand statements from public officials, foreign dignitaries, and political commentators. Friends and colleagues who were closest to Beau were the most incisive, which meant their messages were both heartening and heartbreaking: It was an honor to serve alongside him as he worked tirelessly to fight for the powerless and protect the most vulnerable, our children.… Add to that his spark, genuineness, earnestness, and unconditional love for public service.… One of the truest measures of the man is that he never lost a friend. That tells you everything about him.… He was honestly a great dad. He was the type of father who was present with his children.… Beau made every game. He knew every kid’s name and rooted as hard for them as he did for his own son.… Family came first. Family was the beginning, middle, and end for him. A friend of Beau’s from grade school told a story about running into him a few years earlier, when Beau, Hallie, and the kids were living with Jill and me while they renovated their house. The friend wondered about the difficulty of living with his parents again. “Beau said how wonderful it was for the whole family to be living under the same roof,” the friend explained. “Being together as family was the most important thing for him.”

  There were two letters that gave me real comfort in the first days after Beau’s passing. One was from Evan Ryan, one of my former staff members. She sent me a note, quoting a poem. “I stood watching as the little ship sailed out to sea,” it read. “The setting sun tinted his white sails with a golden light, and as he disappeared from sight a voice at my side whispered, ‘He is gone.’” The disappearance did not mark an end, but another beginning, in a new and unknown place. “On the farther shore a little band of friends had gathered to watch and wait in happy expectation.” I found myself imagining Neilia, and Beau’s baby sister, Naomi, and my own mother and father standing on that far shor
e, ready to receive him. “Suddenly they caught sight of the tiny sail and, at the very moment when my companion had whispered, ‘He is gone,’ a glad shout went up in joyous welcome, ‘Here he comes.’”

  A personal letter from Teddy Kennedy’s widow, Vicki, struck me especially. Vicki had married into a singular family in American history. The Kennedys had enjoyed soaring accomplishment and suffered devastating tragedy. Their experience seemed to confirm my father’s belief that fate was an inescapable part of life, but that every person, and every family, got a kind of zero balance in the good fortune–bad fortune equation on the ledger sheet. The bigger the highs, the deeper the troughs. My own life bore out his adage. The Kennedys were on a whole other level. Teddy’s father, Joe Kennedy Sr., had been a spectacular success in almost every business he touched, and he had seen one of his sons become president of the United States. But he buried three of his four sons and a treasured daughter in his own lifetime. In her letter to me, Vicki Kennedy quoted from a letter Joe Sr. had written to a friend who had lost his own son, a letter she said Teddy used to pull out and read in the worst times of his own life. “When one of your loved ones goes out of your life, you think what he might have done with a few more years,” Joe Sr. had written to his friend. “And you wonder what you are going to do with the rest of yours. Then one day, because there is a world to be lived in, you find yourself part of it, trying to accomplish something—something he did not have time enough to do. And perhaps that is the reason for it all. I hope so.” I hope so, too.