About a half year ago, in December 2014, memes using this photo (by Getty Images) of Vice President Joe Biden looking out of a White House window went viral. All kinds of captions were inserted, some political satire, other silly and absurd.
Months later, the internet exploded again about Joe Biden, this time with the tragic news of the untimely death of his son Beau Biden at the age of 46. Losing a child is one of the hardest sorrows a person can face, and this isn’t Joe Biden’s first time to experience it. In 1972, Joe Biden lost his first wife and young child in car accident. He remarried and raised his children and continued to pursue a political career, but was always there for his children. And now in 2015, he lost another child to cancer.
Take another look at Mr. Biden at the window. Forget all those memes. He’s looking out with a slight frown and firm focus, seems to be some bitterness or sadness, and longing. Such heartbreak doesn’t go away. Time doesn’t heal this type of wound.
More people than we might realize have experienced profound personal loss and continue to carry this weight in the hearts. Yet they valiantly carry on in life. It’s amazing what people can accomplish despite tremendous loss and hardship. Look at Holocaust survivors who built new lives, families and businesses after the war. Look no further than Joe Biden, Vice President of the United States.
But sometimes, when they are alone and have some quiet space, they look longingly in the distance, through that window, which is both a barrier and a bridge, and they see something so close yet so far, something dear that no one else can see.