A Military Family Enters the White House

Review by Bill Doughty

Military families can experience dark times: Sacrificing months and years apart; feeling the stresses and strains of moves, missions, and memories; and in some cases making the ultimate sacrifice.

Anyone who has lost a loved one can identify with the depth of darkness that is often part of life, especially felt in the pit of winter. Dr. Jill Biden shines a summer light in her beautiful autobiography: “Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself” (Flatiron Books, 2019). Biden, a teacher, is also author of “Don’t Forget, God Bless Our Troops.”

Dr. Jill Biden at Camp Victory, Iraq, July 4, 2010

Biden, of course, is the incoming First Lady, wife of President-elect Joe Biden. She is also mom of the late Maj. Beau Biden, a veteran of the Iraq War. Beau Biden served in the Delaware National Guard, Judge Advocate General Corps, and 261st Signal Corps in Smyrna, Delaware. After military service, he served as Attorney General of Delaware. Beau died in 2015 after losing his battle with brain cancer. Dr. Jill Biden speaks of a special fraternity shared by those who have experienced the ultimate darkness, the death of a son or daughter:

“Hidden in crowds, scattered throughout workplaces and grocery stores and parks, there is a fraternity of people who’ve lost sons and daughters. To the uninitiated, we look normal, average, whole. But like a secret handshake, I can spot them sometimes –– by the sadness in their eyes or the curve of their shoulders, as if they can still feel the small arms of a child wrapping around their neck. I meet them at speeches and public events. Recently, I was getting my nails done when a woman came up to me and started to cry. I knew before she spoke. ‘I’m a Gold Star mom,’ she said, ‘and I just wanted to show you a picture of my son.’ She pulled a worn memorial card from her purse with his photo on it, and as she cried, people nearby asked uncomfortably, ‘What’s the matter? Is everything okay?’ But there’s no good way to announce to a nail salon, Isn’t it clear? Our sons are gone, and we are shattered.’ I just hugged her instead. And every May, on the anniversary of Beau’s death, she finds a way to get a note to me. One year, she left it with a nail technician who passed it along. She recently came to one of my speeches just to support me. We share a bond that will last forever: two strangers, two mothers, with broken hearts.

“Membership to this fraternity comes with no guide, and I have no advice, no wisdom to dole out to new initiates. A friend of mine lost her son, a firefighter, in a terrible blaze. He was young, with two kids, and they carried his body to the grave wrapped in an American flag. I wanted so badly to offer her words of hope or to tell her it’s going to get better. But I don’t know if that’s true. Instead, I wrote her a note to say I was thinking about her and that she isn’t alone. That’s the truest thing I can say to parents who know this impossible pain: you are not alone.”

Biden educates with warmth and humility about tragedies and sorrows. She writes of victories and hope, joy and light, grit and resilience. 

Dr. Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, meets with spouses of U.S. Coast Guardsmen May 3, 2012, during a visit to Coast Guard Station Miami Beach, Florida. Biden took questions as part of the Joining Forces program she created with first lady Michelle Obama. Joining Forces is a national initiative to mobilize all sectors of society to give service members and their families opportunities and support. (USCG, PO3 Sabrina Elgammal)

Writing about her failed relationship and divorce before meeting then-Senator Joe Biden, Dr. Biden describes trying to find herself after feeling she had failed. “I picked up the pieces of my life and tucked them away.”

In a twist of irony, as part of her therapy she blasted a favorite song by the Rolling Stones:

“I smothered my sorrows in long study sessions and buckled down on finishing my degree. I dated men without hoping for much. I let go of fairy-tale endings, and I tried to reconnect with he brave person I used to be. I played my music loud:

‘You can’t always get what you want

But if you try sometimes you just might find

You get what you need.’”

The song was used as part of President Trump’s presidential campaign in 2020 despite complaints and cease-and-desist orders by the Rolling Stones. The song is from the 1969 album “Let It Bleed.”

After meeting and dating then-Senator Biden for more than two years and getting to know each other’s families, Jill finally accepted the last of Joe’s five proposals. Joe’s sons, Beau and Hunter, had told their dad, “We think we should marry Jill.”

She became “mom” to the boys, and she and Joe gave them a sister, Ashley. Now they are proud and loving grandparents.

Dr. Biden speaks with Marine Sgt. James Amos at MCB Camp Pendleton, Jan. 20, 2012. (Cpl. Kayla Hermann)

There is a power in this book about overcoming failed relationships and family tragedies, including the deaths of Joe’s first wife and daughter in a car crash, Joe’s brain aneurism that nearly killed him, elections that didn’t go the Bidens’ way, and of course the death of Beau.

Dr. Biden writes:

“As Walt Whitman wrote, ‘Some people are so much sunlight to the square inch.’ Beau burned so brightly in my life that without him, I felt blinded by the darkness. I felt stuck in that void, unable to move.

“One of my last true prayers was one of desperation, as Beau began to slip away from us, and it went unanswered. Since then the worlds don’t seem to come. The beautiful stained-glass windows I once loved, the warm wooden pulpits, the rich red kneelers –– now I can see only cold colored light that refuses to shine on him, his unspoken Rosary, an empty space at the Eucharistic table … one day I hope I can salvage my faith.”

The book's epilogue shows “where the light enters” for the Biden family.

Dr. Biden’s is a story of balance –– teacher, wife, mother, grandmother, sister, military family –– revealed in a found haiku:

“I’ve learned that Life 

is a balancing act. And 

I am still learning”

As the world prepares for a dark winter due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Jill Biden, the teacher, shines a light. Near the conclusion of this enlightening book, Dr. Biden quotes Albert Camus, author of “The Plague,” “The Rebel,” and “Summer”: “In the middle of winter I had at last discovered that there was in me an invincible summer.”

Dr. Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, makes greeting cards for wounded and deployed soldiers with 50 children at a special holiday event at the vice president's residence on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory, Dec. 1, 2010. (Linda Hosek, DoD)