Mr Biden, who keeps a notebook with many of the eulogies he has delivered, has visited countless families suffering from grief - from fallen soldiers to the parents of George Floyd - earning him the nickname of consoler-in-chief. In 2015, Mr Biden's son Beau died of brain cancer. There's a hollowness in your chest, you feel like you're being sucked into it,” Mr Biden said following the Uvalde massacre at a Texas elementary school. “To lose a child is like having a piece of your soul ripped away. Mr Biden wrote in Promises to Keep that for the first time in his life he understood anguish so bad that you want to take your own life - but he stuck around for his sons and took his oath of office in their hospital room, both at his side. The family was taken to hospital where Neilia and Naomi were pronounced dead on arrival.īeau sustained a broken leg and Hunter, a fractured skull. She loaded up the children into the family estate car and headed out for the day.Īt around 2.30pm on December 18, 1972, Neilia crashed into an oncoming lorry, launching the vehicle 46 metres into an embankment. The Bidens had so much to look forward to.Ī week before Christmas Day, Mr Biden headed to Washington to set up his new offices on Capitol Hill, while Neilia and the children stayed behind to go holiday shopping and see Santa. Christmas would be just around the corner and then, in January, the swearing-in ceremony. Two weeks later, on November 20, the young family cut a cake to honour Mr Biden’s 30th birthday.

Joe Biden takes his oath of office from US Senate secretary Frank Valeo in son Beau's hospital room with his father-in-law, Robert Hunter, at his side.

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