“Promise Me Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose” by Joe Biden

Former Vice-president Joe Biden and his family were forced to mourn publicly when his 46-year-old son Beau died of a brain tumor in the spring of 2015. This was the second lightening strike of great loss Biden had endured in the public’s eye. Weeks after being first elected a U.S. senator from Delaware, just over 40 years ago, Biden’s young wife and daughter were killed in a car crash. Beau and brother Hunter, 3 and 2 at the time, suffered critical injuries, but recovered.

Biden’s memoir becomes a moving touchstone that reveals how he dealt with, first, Beau’s terminal illness and then his son’s death, in the shadow of his earlier loss.

Both experiences inspired promises made by the vice president who, along with his unwavering dedication to  family and tremendous work ethic, is clearly a man of his word. The title “Promise Me, Dad” refers to the vow Beau asks of his father as the cancer becomes more and more virulent – a promise that he’ll be “okay” after Beau’s inevitable death.

Other meaningful promises to survivors of tragedy pervade Biden’s narrative. Early on, the vice president promises Beau, who served two full terms as Delaware’s attorney general and a year-long tour in Iraq, that the severity of his illness will be kept out of the news. Even President Obama, who shares a deep friendship with his governing mate, did not know how grave Beau’s condition had become until Beau completed his second term as attorney general but decided not to run for governor of Delaware in 2016, due to his illness.

Former Vice-president Joe Biden

There is no doubt that the loss of his first wife and young daughter influenced how personally Biden fulfilled a traditional vice-presidential duty –representing the country at funerals. Less than a month after Beau’s death, the vice president and his second wife Jill even make an unofficial surprise visit to a regular service at Charleston’s Emanuel AME Church, shortly after the mass shooting of nine of its members who were attending a service there. (President Obama  eulogized its slain pastor a few days earlier.)

“New York” magazine reported that Biden told the church-goers that he and his family came to “draw some strength ” from them.

Even before Beau’s death, Biden’s closeness to survivors of tragic loss exceeded empathy. I found myself most moved by the connection — and promises — Biden made to the families of two Brooklyn, New York police officers assassinated in December of 2014 around the time, unbeknownst to the public, Beau’s cancer was steadily worsening.

Vice President and Mrs. Biden attended the funeral service of Officer Rafael Ramos just two days after Christmas. Called to the podium to speak, Biden began with his prepared remarks until his eyes rested on Ramos’ two young sons sitting in front of him. “It was almost like I was watching young Beau and Hunt sitting in those chairs looking at me,” says Biden in the memoir. The flashback distracted him from his script, so instead he said,  “What handsome boys. I remember a similar occasion a long time ago.”

“Mom I assure you,”  Biden continued, addressing Maritza Ramos directly. “Those boys will get through all of this” with the help of the ” 25,000 members of the same fraternity and sorority as your husband who stand, and will stand with you, the rest of your life.”

The vice president added, “I also know from experience that 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 promise you it will happen.”

Later that day, Biden insisted on visiting the young widow of Wenjian Lui, the other slain police officer, who had been married only three months. Her husband’s funeral had been delayed because many of his relatives in China were still trying to get proper travel documents to make the trip to New York.

Beau joins his father Joe Biden on the campaign road during happier times 
Chris Wattie/Reuters

Biden offered the same comfort he shared earlier — about how one day she will recall the memory of her husband with a smile instead of tears, along with the warning that her experience “will get harder” before that revelatory moment. And for those difficult times that occur as time passes, he suggested that she, “pick up the phone and call me” because he — unlike most of the widow’s family and friends — had also experienced the loss of a young spouse. We later come to find out that Joe Biden has a long list of strangers who have his private number and an invitation to call, and many of them do.

It’s likely that, had Beau lived, the former vice president would have announced his candidacy for the 2016 presidential election. Biden’s memoir reveals how a man already familiar with the complexities of dealing with great loss intuitively knew that grieving his son’s death needed to take precedence over political aspirations, even a man as duty-bound as Joe Biden. One wonders, as Biden heals and he finds that he can once again smile at recollections of Beau, what promise his future may still hold.