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

by Joe Biden

And if the problem is fear, the answer is knowledge. Each side has to be willing to try to understand the concerns of the other.

Funerals are for the living, I have always believed, and the job of the eulogist is to acknowledge the enormity of the loss they have just suffered and to help them appreciate that the legacy and accomplishments of their loved one have not died with them. I also try hard to assure them that they are not alone.

“There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America,” he had said in the speech that introduced him to the country ten years earlier. “There’s the United States of America.”

When I talk to people in mourning, they know I speak from experience. They know I have a sense of the depth of their pain.

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?

“Mr. Prime Minister, I’m looking into your eyes,” I told him, smiling. “I don’t think you have a soul.” He looked at me for a second and smiled back. “We understand each other,” he said. And we did.

Martin Niemöller, a Protestant pastor who was thrown into a German concentration camp at the end of the war. First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

“This can happen again. This is happening in other parts of the world now. And you have to speak out. You can’t remain silent. Silence is complicity.”

Never tell a man what his interests are. Be straight and open with him about your own interests. And try to put yourself in his shoes. Try to understand his hopes and his limitations, and never insist that he do something you know he cannot. It’s really just about making the effort to make a personal connection.

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.

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.

“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 wish I could say something that would ease the pain of the families and of the church,” I told them. “But I know from experience, and I was reminded of it again twenty-nine days ago, that no words can mend a broken heart. No music can fill the gaping void.… And sometimes, as all preachers in here know, sometimes even faith leaves you just for a second. Sometimes you doubt.… There’s a famous expression that says faith sees best in the dark,

Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep. You, Lord, preserve both people and animals. How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

I want to spend as much time as I can with my family, and I want to help change the country and the world for the better. That duty does much more than give me purpose; it gives me something to hope for. It makes me nostalgic for the future.

It remains an honor for us all to try to live by the example he set, best captured in 2 Timothy 4:7: “I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.”