Here’s what we know now about Biden’s final exit from politics
President Joe Biden announced he had prostate cancer. He was already under scrutiny for his mental vision. This is what we know now.
Former President Joe Biden began his Senate career since 1972, and in his 12 years in the White House, he initially served as Vice President and later Commander-in-Chief. But his most common (and lasting) companions were sadness and tragedy.
The new Delaware senator was sworn in for his first term in hospital as his young sons recovered from a car accident in which Biden’s first wife and young daughter. After 40 years and promotion to vice president, Biden once again publicly grieved after his eldest son, Beau, was lost to a brain tumor.
Currently, former president, 82, is facing his own cancer diagnosis.
On May 18, a Biden spokesman said he had been diagnosed with a “aggressive form” of prostate cancer.
At times it was said that grief had halted Biden’s ambitions. It also seemed to give him a heroic level of empathy and leadership nature.
Senator Chris Coons, D-Delaware, told Politico in 2019.
Licensed professional counselor Jessica McNair said tragedy like the one Biden endured throughout his life can often change his sense of identity.
“Sadness can be a critical feature of someone’s life when loss is repetitive or formative,” McNair said.
“When sadness is a central theme in someone’s life,” she added.
Death, Loss Cloud Biden’s Story
A week before Christmas after Biden won the first Senate election, Nilia Biden returned home with the couple’s three young children and came back from a trip to choose a family tree.
The tractor trailer spread out the Chevro Race Station wagon at the intersection of the Valley and Limestone Road in Hockesin, Delaware.
Nilia Biden, 30, and Naomi Biden, 13 months old, died before they arrived at the hospital. Hunter Biden (2 years old at the time) and three (Bo Biden at the time) were seriously injured.
Biden explained that he vibrates between numbness and is being amputated by pain. In my 2007 book, “Promise of Keep,” I was like a broken glass fragment. It was his surviving son who protected him from his darkest thoughts, he wrote.
“I see Bo and Hunter sleeping and wonder the new horrors their own dreams have embraced, and I wonder who will explain to my sons that I am gone,” Biden writes. “And I knew I had no choice but to fight to stay alive.”
Beau Biden grew up to become a major in the Delaware State Guard, federal prosecutors and Delaware’s second term attorney general. He was scheduled to run for governor.
Later in 2015, Biden’s eldest son, the source of his strength died at the age of 46 after a battle with a brain tumor.
“I miss him so badly – already,” Biden wrote in his 2017 memoir, “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Harge, and Purpose.
“Bo was always able to drive my fear away. He saved my life with Hunter 40 years ago, after Nilia and Naomi died in a car accident.
A New York City grief therapist, “Moving doesn’t mean letting go: it doesn’t mean a guide to modern loss,” author Gina Moffa said grief can be deeply shaped.
“Sadness can act like a strict teacher and strip you of things that are not important,” Moffa said. “For many people, including public figures like Biden, it’s reiterating life again around a sense of purpose, service and connection.”
She said, “There are people in front There’s loss, and who you become rear. ”
“God loves him.”
Five months after Beau’s death, Biden, who was then the second vice president, openly shut his doors for upcoming presidential elections.
“I know from previous experience there is no timetable for this (sad) process,” Biden said in a speech at the White House Rose Garden. “This process doesn’t respect or care much about deadlines, discussions, primary elections, party member submissions, etc.”
The loss of Beau also hit the rest of the Biden family hardly.
Former first lady Jill Biden spoke about the “crushed” grief she felt and finding comfort in writing. Jill and Joe’s daughter, Ashley Biden, read “Commander, Dear Heart” after her brother passed away and got tattoos on her wrists.
Hunter Biden suffered from a recurrence of alcoholism and later suffered from crack cocaine.
His family at one point tried to set the intervention, Hunter Biden wrote in a 2021 book.
“I don’t know what else to do,” he recalls what his father said. “I’m very scared. Please tell me what to do.”
As president, Joe Biden saw his son go to trial and convict on a felony gun charge, and later Hunter pleaded guilty to failing to pay his taxes. Biden made a controversial decision on his final days of office to issue a bold pardon for his son.
“He’s doing great things, God loves him,” Biden told USA Today in January. “Thank God for doing really well.”
Grief comes in many ways beyond just death. Biden, who was very similar to the loss of Hunter’s mother, grew up “after,” but likely grieved the life he imagined for his young son.
A smile comes before my tears
Biden is known as the “American Grief Counselor.” His emotional appeal during the 2020 campaign and the Covid-19 pandemic has been linked to voters.
Often he comforted others who were experiencing the pain of loss with a familiar mantra.
“I’ll open that closet door and either I’ll smell the smell of her dress or go by the park I walked with my kids,” Biden said in a 2023 interview with podcaster Jay Shetty.
“() For the longest time, it only brings tears to your eyes,” he continued. “But in the end, you’ll bring a smile to your lips before you get tears on your lips. When that happens, you know you’ll make it.”
David Kessler, founder of Grieb.com and founder of Grief.com, who spoke with Biden after Beau’s death, said that diagnosis is a form of grief.
“Through his personal experience, President Biden has come to understand that it is more than the loss he endured,” Kessler said.
In a May 19 social media post containing a photo of himself next to his wife of almost 50 years, Biden thanked everyone who provided support in response to the news of his cancer.
“Like many of you,” he wrote, “Jill and I learned that we are the strongest in the broken place.”
