In Jill Biden's autobiography, "Where The Light Enters," Jill recounts how she met Joe Biden's then-wife, Neelia (opens in new tab), in the winter of 1972." She had a gentle, natural beauty," Jill wrote, adding that Neelia, then 30, had a "warm, genuine smile." A month later, Jill learned that Neelia and the couple's daughter, Naomi, had died suddenly in an automobile accident. 'It was so unfair,' she said. 'You take a mother from her children, a father from his daughter. Joe Biden had it all, and he lost it in an instant."

Years later, Joe spoke about the tragedy in his 2015 commencement speech at Yale University (opens in new tab) In 1972, he had just been elected to the Delaware Senate and was waiting to take office. 'I was in Washington hiring staff when I got the call,' he said. 'My wife and three kids were Christmas shopping. A tractor-trailer pulled up broadside, killing my wife and killing my daughter."

A few weeks before his inauguration, Joe was working in a rented office in Washington when he heard the news; in his 2008 memoir, Promises to Keep (opens in new tab), Joe writes that he immediately knew something was wrong. Her sister, Valerie Biden Owens, was on the phone with her brother Jimmy when her face went blank. After watching his sister hang up the phone and suggest that they fly back to Wilmington, Delaware for a "little accident," he could only reply, "I guess she's dead."

Neria was 30 years old and Naomi, whom he called "Amy," had just turned one year old. (Joe's granddaughter Naomi, now 26, was named after her.) (Open in new tab) Their two sons, Hunter and Beau, ages 4 and 3, respectively, were in critical condition, forcing Joe to perform the senatorial swearing-in ceremony at his sons' hospital bedside. (Open in new tab)

"The first memory I have is of lying in a hospital bed next to my brother," Hunter said while delivering the eulogy (open in new tab) for Bo, who died of brain cancer in 2015.

"I was almost three years old, and I remember my brother, a year and a day older than me, holding my hand, looking into my eyes, saying over and over, 'I love you, I love you, I love you.'"

In his commencement speech at Yale University, Joe explained: "Many of us have had that experience. But I had the incredible good fortune of having a large family, full of love and loyalty and a sense of duty given to each one of us, so I not only got help. By concentrating on my sons, I found my redemption."

In his speech, Joe spoke movingly about the closeness he felt with his sons after the accident, saying: "The incredible bond I have with my children is a gift I might not have had had I not gone through what I did."

Joe met Neilia by chance during a spring break trip in 1964, when he and a group of friends drove to Fort Lauderdale, Florida for a few days. Boredom struck early on, they decided to book a round-trip trip to Nassau, Bahamas, for a change. When they arrived in Nassau, he and a few companions snuck past security with hotel towels wrapped around their waists and into a luxury hotel. That's when he saw Naylia, a Syracuse University student, lying by the pool, his friends recalled in The New York Times (opens in new tab). I found the blonde," Joe told his friends."

He and Naylia hit it off and were married in 1966. Joe wrote in his memoir Promises to Keep.

"Now I could see the big picture."

The years following Neria and Naomi's tragic passing were, of course, a very difficult time for Joe. After the accident, Valerie moved in with her brother and his two sons in Wilmington and lived with them for four years. They had lost their mother and sister and couldn't afford to lose their father. That's what got him out of bed in the morning," Valerie told The New Yorker (opens in new tab) in 2014. With the help of his sister, Joe got out of bed and prepared to make the 90-minute one-way commute to Washington on Amtrak to fulfill his duties as a Delaware state senator.

It was Neelia who helped him win that seat. According to the News Journal (opens in new tab), she was the "brains" of his campaign and one of his closest advisors.

At a 2012 event for U.S. soldiers, Joe spoke of his grief (opens in new tab) and said, "For the first time in my life, I understood that someone could make a conscious decision to commit suicide. Not because I was crazy, not because I was mad, but because I got to the top of the mountain and knew in my heart that I could never go there again, that I could never be like that again. Keep thinking about what your husband or wife wants you to do. Keep thinking about what that is, and keep thinking of your children, or the rest of his or her life, as blood of my blood, bone of my bone.

Years later, Joe met Jill Jacobs in 1975 (open in new tab) and fell in love, bringing him the strength he so desperately needed after a great personal loss. In his 2007 memoir, Promises to Keep (opens in new tab), Joe says of Jill: "She was the one who brought me back to life. She gave me my life back."

"My mother came over in 1977 and rebuilt our family and helped my father rebuild our family.

Jill turned down the first five proposals from Joe because she knew how deeply Hunter and Beau had been affected by the tragic deaths of their mother and sister. 'By that time, of course, I was in love with my boys, and I really felt that this marriage had to work,' she told Vogue (opens in new tab) in 2016. 'Because those boys had lost their mother, and I couldn't let them lose another mother. So I needed to be 100 percent sure." When they were finally sure, the couple tied the knot in 1977, and their daughter Ashley was born into the world in 1981.

In 2015, Beau Biden, who succeeded his beloved father as Delaware Attorney General, passed away from brain cancer. He was 46 years old at the time. Joe said in a statement at the time that "Beau Biden was, quite simply, the best man any of us will ever know." Then-President Barack Obama delivered the eulogy at Beau's funeral, saying: "He was a good man. He did in 46 years what many of us could not do in 146 years."

Again, Joe wrestled to find the good that comes from tragedy. He did not run for president in 2016, but wrote in his book Promise Me, Dad that he was too overcome with grief.

The former vice president was open about his experience with grief (open in new tab) during the campaign, frequently mentioning Bo and speaking intimately with bereaved voters; in January 2020, Politico's Michael Kruse (open in new tab) described empathy as Joe's "superpower" and wrote wrote: "No figure in American politics today has had his life so shaped by loss and grief. The long arc of Biden's career has been bracketed entirely by tragedy."

Biden's "grief" was "a tragedy of the most profound kind.

After Beau's death, Joe became even more passionate about cancer research, directing the Obama administration's Cancer Moonshot program. When he was running for president, Joe told his supporters.

Joe has also been a fierce advocate for mental health as a priority as vice president. He exclaimed in 2013, "Imagine what it would be like if people felt as comfortable saying they were going to get counseling as they do going to get a flu shot." (opens in new tab)

In an interview with MSNBC earlier this year (opens in new tab), Joe said, "Hundreds of people reach out their arms to me when they talk about the painful loss of a parent, child or spouse."

He continued, "The way you make it is you find your purpose and realize they are in you. They are a part of you. It's impossible to separate them."