Biden's prism of loss: A public man, 形態／調整d by 私的な grief
WASHINGTON (AP) - On the night before Joe Biden's world 崩壊（する）d, he sat in a picture-perfect scene with his wife by the fireside in their Delaware living room.
Biden, the hotshot 上院議員-elect at just 30, was 反映するing on the big things he would do when he got to Washington. It was one week out from Christmas in 1972, and Neilia, also 30, was 演説（する）／住所ing holiday cards as her husband rambled on. But then she interrupted his musings to 株 an ill premonition.
"What's going to happen, Joey?" she asked her husband, in Biden's later recounting. "Things are too good."
One day later, Neilia and the couple's 13-month old daughter, Naomi, were dead. Sons Hunter and Beau, a year and a day apart at 3 and 4, were 本気で 負傷させるd.
While Biden was in Washington setting up his new office, Neilia's car had been broadsided by a tractor-trailer as she took the kids to 選ぶ out a Christmas tree.
When the phone rang, Biden said later, "I knew."
ADVANCE FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY, AUG. 18, AND THEREAFTER - FILE - In this Oct. 12, 1991, とじ込み／提出する photo, 上院 委員会 Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del., gestures during 審理，公聴会s before the 委員会 on 主張s of 性の いやがらせ by 最高裁判所 指名された人 Clarence Thomas on （ワシントンの）連邦議会議事堂 Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Greg Gibson, とじ込み／提出する)
"You just felt it in your bones."
Nothing would ever be the same. Biden was 即時に transformed into a 政治家，政治屋 whose career would forever be grounded in 悲劇. Loss became central to Biden's political persona, a history he has often 株d - at some points reluctantly, at others readily and on at least a few occasions with inaccuracies in the account. Now in his third 企て，努力，提案 for the White House, the painful story comes up as point of 関係 to 投票者s and a personal experience on health care 政策.
As it turned out, Biden's passage through hardship was not to be a one-time 旅行 but a 井戸／弁護士席-traveled path. His life was later 激しく揺するd by serious illness, political 後退s, and, in 2015, the death of Beau from brain 癌 at age 46. There were other, いっそう少なく public, 裁判，公判s, 含むing son Hunter's struggles as an adult with 中毒.
にもかかわらず life's cruelties, though, Biden remarried, 追加するd daughter Ashley to his family, spent 26 years in the 上院, eight as 副／悪徳行為 大統領，／社長 and 追求するd the 大統領／総裁などの地位 off and on for more than three １０年間s. He's now making another run at age 76.
"He is the unluckiest person I've ever known 本人自身で, and he is the luckiest person I've ever known 本人自身で," says longtime friend Ted Kaufman, who 後継するd Biden in the 上院.
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After the 事故, Biden had no 利益／興味 in the 上院 anymore. No ambition for anything, really. His worl d 見解（をとる） shrank to taking care of the boys.
"For the first time in my life, I understood how someone could consciously decide to commit 自殺," he would later 明らかにする／漏らす.
He 審議d 放棄するing the 上院 seat he'd yet to even 占領する but 結局 agreed to give the 職業 a try for six months. He lasted 36 years.
Over those years, Biden's personal 悲劇 形態／調整d his public personal and his 私的な 関係s.
Biden makes a point of reaching out to grieving friends and strangers.
Often, these partners-in-grief hear a message of 安心 from Biden that's drawn from his own experience: There will come a day, I 約束 you, when the thought of your son or daughter or your husband or wife "brings a smile to your lips before it brings a 涙／ほころび to your 注目する，もくろむ."
They also may come away with his cellphone number.
"I have a long 名簿（に載せる）／表（にあげる） of strangers who have my 私的な number and an 招待 to call," Biden wrote in his 2017 調書をとる／予約する. "And many of them do."
For one family, though, the famed Biden 評判 for empathy comes up short.
Curtis Dunn was the driver whose トラックで運ぶ struck Neilia's car. By all accounts, Dunn was absolved of 悪事を働くこと in the 事故, with no 証拠 that スピード違反 or alcohol was a factor. Dunn, who died in 1999, never forgot that awful day, wondering aloud in 未来 years "how the little Biden boys are doing," 解任するs his daughter, 54-year-old Pamela Hamill of Newark, Delaware.
But １０年間s later, Biden on at least two occasions, in 2001 and 2007, 申し込む／申し出d an 不確かの 見解／翻訳／版 of Dunn's 役割 in the 事故, referring 公然と to a トラックで運ぶ driver who "stopped to drink" before 運動ing and 述べるing the driver as "a guy who 恐らく - and I never 追求するd it - drank his lunch instead of eating his lunch."
Hamill, 狼狽d by the misrepresentations, crusaded to 訂正する the 記録，記録的な／記録する, and got some マスコミ attention for her 成果／努力s.
Biden later called her - at first agitated about the 衝撃 the 論争 was having on his own mot her, who he said "had to go on 苦悩 医薬," in Hamill's recounting. その上の, Biden told her it was his own son, Beau, who had had to retrieve the 事故 報告（する）／憶測.
"Then he was very apologetic," Hamill continued. "By this time I was in 涙／ほころびs. He said, 'I'm sorry, don't cry. I will come to your home with all your family there and わびる.'" But Biden told her he would not 問題／発行する a public 陳謝, telling Hamill that it would "結局最後にはーなる in all the trashy magazines in the grocery 蓄える／店."
Hamill never took him up on the 申し込む／申し出 to 会合，会う with her family, worried about how her mother would 扱う it. She never heard from him again.
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Nearly half a century into his political career, Biden still 過程s events through the でっちあげる，人を罪に陥れる of 言及／関連 of his past travails. And he's still 傾向がある to について言及するing the 悲劇s of his life as political lessons.
Often, he brings up the twin 悲劇s of his wife and daughter's deaths and then Beau's death in the 状況 of health care 政策, 説 he "couldn't imagine" what it would be like if he hadn't had good 接近 to health care. He について言及するd the 事故 during a speech to a firefighters union in March, six weeks before he 発表するd his 最新の （選挙などの）運動をする.
"I'm going to repeat myself but we feel so 深く，強烈に indebted," he said. "In December of '72 when my wife was bringing home a Christmas tree, a tractor-trailer broadsided, killed my wife, killed my daughter. It took about an hour and a half, I'm told, for the jaws of life from my 解雇する／砲火／射撃 company to save my boys who in all 見込み, I'm told, would have died 同様に."
He choked up last month during a speech in Iowa in which he invoked both the deaths of Beau and of his wife and daughter as he 賞賛するd personal caregivers who are there to 持つ／拘留する people's 手渡すs when they "get really 脅すd."
In this, Biden is hardly alone. Many 政治家，政治屋s use personal episodes to make political point.
Still, it was somewhat 予期しない to hear him invoke his history as he defended himself a gainst 批評 that he was too physical with women.
He tries to "make a human 関係" with those trying to "get through 悲劇," Biden said in a ビデオ message in which he said he understood that the 境界s of personal space have been reset in 最近の years.
"Over the years, knowing what I've been through, the things I've 直面するd, I've 設立する that 得点する／非難する／２０s, if not hundreds of people have come up to me and reached out for solace and 慰安."
Soon after, Biden went on to 割れ目 jokes about the 批評, 示唆するing it was an overreaction of the #Metoo 時代.
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Associated 圧力（をかける） news 研究員 Jennifer Farrar in New York 与える／捧げるd to this 報告（する）／憶測.
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Follow Nancy Benac on Twitter at http://twitter.com/nbenac
ADVANCE FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY, AUG. 18, AND THEREAFTER - FILE - In this June 6, 2015, とじ込み／提出する photo, then-副大統領 Joe Biden watches an 栄誉（を受ける） guard carry a casket 含む／封じ込めるing the remains of his son, former Delaware 司法長官 Beau Biden, into St. Anthony of Padua Roman カトリック教徒 Church in Wilmington, Del. Standing と一緒に the 副／悪徳行為 大統領，／社長 are Beau's 未亡人 Hallie Biden, left, and daughter, Natalie. Beau Biden died of brain 癌 May 30 at age 46. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, とじ込み／提出する)
ADVANCE FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY, AUG. 18, AND THEREAFTER - Joseph Biden, the newly-elected Democratic 上院議員 from Delaware, is shown in Washington, Dec. 12, 1972. (AP Photo/Henry Griffin)
ADVANCE FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY, AUG. 18, AND THEREAFTER - FILE - In this June 6, 2015, とじ込み／提出する photo, then=大統領 Barack Obama 抱擁するs then-副大統領 Joe Biden during funeral services for Biden's son, Beau Biden, at St. Anthony of Padua Church in Wilmington, Del. (Yuri Gripas/Pool Photo 経由で AP, とじ込み／提出する)
ADVANCE FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY, AUG. 18, AND THEREAFTER - FILE - In this summer 1972, とじ込み／提出する photo, Joe Biden, carries both of his sons, Joseph, left, and Robert during an 外見 at the Democratic 明言する／公表する 条約 At 中心 is his wife Neilia Biden, who was killed in an 自動車 衝突，墜落, Dec. 20, 1972. With them are Gov.-elect Sherman W. Tribbitt and his wife, Jeanne. (AP Photo)
ADVANCE FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY, AUG. 18, AND THEREAFTER - In this Dec. 13, 1972, とじ込み／提出する photo, the newly-elected Democratic 上院議員 from Delaware, Joe Biden, is shown on （ワシントンの）連邦議会議事堂 Hill in Washington. (AP Photo, とじ込み／提出する)
ADVANCE FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY, AUG. 18, AND THEREAFTER - FILE - In this Aug. 9, 2019, とじ込み／提出する photo, former 副大統領 and Democratic 大統領の 候補者 Joe Biden 会合，会うs with 支持者s before speaking at the Iowa Democratic Wing Ding at the Surf Ballroom in （疑いを）晴らす Lake, Iowa. (AP Photo/John Locher, とじ込み／提出する)
ADVANCE FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY, AUG. 18, AND THEREAFTER - FILE - In this Aug. 13, 2008, とじ込み／提出する photo, then-Democratic 大統領の 希望に満ちた Sen. Joe Biden 持つ／拘留するs up a 1972 "Life" magazine with his picture in it that was given to him to 調印する after speaking to the Nashua Rotary Club in Nashua, N.H. (AP Photo/Cheryl Senter, とじ込み／提出する)
ADVANCE FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY, AUG. 18, AND THEREAFTER - FILE - In this Jan. 5, 1973 とじ込み／提出する photo, four-year-old Beau Biden, foreground, plays 近づく his father, Joe Biden, 中心, 存在 sworn in as the U.S. 上院議員 from Delaware, by 上院 長官 Frank Valeo, left, in 儀式s in a Wilmington hospital. Beau was 負傷させるd in an 事故 that killed his mother and sister in December 1972. Biden's father, Robert Hunter, 持つ／拘留するs the Bible. (AP Photo/とじ込み／提出する)
ADVANCE FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY, AUG. 18, AND THEREAFTER - FILE - In this Nov. 7, 1972, とじ込み／提出する photo, Sen.-elect Joseph Biden, left, gives the microphone to his wife, Neilia Biden, 中心, in Wilmington, Del. Mrs. Biden and her daughter, Amy Biden, whom she is 持つ／拘留するing, were killed in a car 衝突，墜落 on Dec. 18, 1972. (Jerry Habraken/The News 定期刊行物 経由で AP)
ADVANCE FOR PUBLICATION ON SUNDAY, AUG. 18, AND THEREAFTER - FILE - In this Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2106, とじ込み／提出する photo, 副大統領 Joe Biden speaks during a 会合 of the 癌 Moonshot 仕事 軍隊 in the Eisenhower (n)役員／(a)執行力のある Office Building on the White House コンビナート／複合体 in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, とじ込み／提出する)
