Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose

by Joe Biden

also know from experience that the time will come, the time will come, when Rafael’s memory will bring a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eyes. That’s when you know—it’s going to be okay. I know it’s hard to believe it will happen, but I promise you, I promise you it will happen. And my prayer for you is that it will come sooner rather than later.”

Consider that almost everybody who died had left behind at least one or two people who were deeply and profoundly wounded by the loss; some left a dozen bereft, others a score.

So I try to be mindful, at all times, of what a difference a small human gesture can make to people in need. What does it really cost to take a moment to look someone in the eye, to give him a hug, to let her know, I get it. You’re not alone?

also told Sanny in more detail what I try to tell everybody: There will come a time when you’ll go riding by a field that you both loved, or see a flower, or smell the fragrance of his suit when he took it off and hung it in the closet, or you’ll hear a song, or you’ll look at the way someone walks, and it will all come back. But someday down the line, God knows when, you’ll realize it doesn’t make you want to cry. It makes you smile. “The time will come when the memory will bring a smile to your lips,” I would tell everyone in that situation, “before it brings a tear to your eyes.” That will happen, I assured her. And that is when you know that you’ve turned a corner.

“Sometimes it’s easier to pour your heart out to somebody you don’t know well, but you know they know. You

“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.