There's a moment in The Frost Tapes, one of the best short podcast series of the year, when Joe Biden opens up about grief in a 1987 interview he gave to David Frost.
The discussion with Mr Biden, which was recorded for a 1988 TV series titled The Next President, was never broadcast because he pulled out of the presidential race shortly after the recording was made. The podcast series was collated by broadcaster Wilfred Frost using his late father's interview archive. The Biden sessions make for fascinating listening now, painting a picture of an empathetic, instinctive and grounded leader.
A few minutes in, Frost asks Mr Biden about the loss of his wife Neilia and his daughter Naomi in a car crash in December 1972, just weeks after being elected as a senator. Mr Biden tells him that the “sense of deprivation, anger and despair” he felt was overwhelming after the accident and that the grief only began to subside after he had experienced “one season of everything” without them.
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US President Joe Biden, with his wife Jill Biden and members of his family as they salute the crowd on stage after delivering remarks in Wilmington, Delaware, on November 7, 2020. AFP -
Wife: Dr Jill Biden. Jill and Joe met in 1975, when Joe was a senator, after they were set up on a blind date by Joe’s brother, Frank. They married in June 1977 and had one child together, daughter Ashley, as well as raising Hunter and Beau, Joe’s two sons with his first wife, Neilia. Getty Images -
First wife: Neilia Hunter Biden. The President-elect and Neilia were married in August 1966, and had three children, sons Hunter and Beau, and daughter Naomi. Neilia and 13-month-old Naomi were killed in a car crash on December 18, 1972, when their car collided with a trailer-truck. Hunter and Beau sustained injuries, but survived the crash. Getty Images -
Son: Beau Biden. Joe and his first wife, Neilia, welcomed son, Beau in February 1969. He attained the rank of Major in the US army, and was deployed to Iraq in 2008. He later became a federal prosecutor in the US Attorney’s Office. He passed away in 2015 from brain cancer at the age of 46. AFP -
Son: Robert Hunter Biden, known as Hunter. Joe and Neilia welcomed Hunter in February 1970. The lawyer and businessman shares three children, Naomi, Finnegan and Maisy, with his ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle. He dated his brother Beau’s widow, Hallie, following Beau’s death, and has a further two children, whose names have not been made public, one with Lunden Alexis Roberts, and a son with his wife Melissa Cohen. Reuters -
Daughter: Ashley Biden. Joe and Jill’s only daughter has a master’s degree in social work from the University of Pennsylvania. And the 39-year-old, who is married to plastic surgeon Howard Krein, worked as executive director of the Delaware Centre for Justice from 2014 to 2019. She also founded the fashion company Livelihood in 2017. Getty Images -
Granddaughter: Naomi Biden. The eldest of Biden’s grandchildren was named after her late aunt and is the daughter of Hunter and Kathleen. The 27-year-old graduated from Columbia Law School in May 2020 and was a classmate of Tiffany Trump while at the University of Pennsylvania. -
Granddaughter: Finnegan Biden. Hunter and Kathleen’s 20-year-old daughter is currently a student at the University of Pennsylvania. She regularly appeared on the campaign trail with her grandfather. AFP -
Granddaughter: Maisy Biden. Younger sister to Naomi and Finnegan, Maisy, 18, is close friends with former First Daughter, Sasha Obama. She enjoys playing basketball, and is an old hand on the campaign trail, having accompanied her grandfather on trips when he was Vice President. AP Photo -
Granddaughter: Natalie Biden. Sixteen-year-old Natalie is the daughter of the late Beau. She campaigned for her grandfather throughout the election, revealing: 'Pop told us that this election would be totally different from any other election ever. He was worried how it would affect his kids.' Reuters -
Grandson: Robert Hunter Biden II. Natalie’s younger brother (second from left) was named after his uncle. Although he is rarely pictured in public, he appeared with his sister and cousins reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in a video at the 2020 Democratic National Convention. Twitter / demconvention -
Sister: Valerie Biden Owens (right). Highly active in her older brother Joe’s political campaigns since he first ran for the Senate back in the '70s, Owens served as a US senior adviser to the United Nations General Assembly and is vice chair of the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware. AFP -
Brother: Frank Biden. The youngest of the four senior Biden siblings, the troubled 66-year-old businessman lives in Florida. He was arrested in 2003 for DUI and petty theft. He was arrested again in 2004 for driving with a suspended license, and was ordered to attend rehab. 'No one anticipated this. It’s spontaneous,' he told the 'Palm Beach Post' of his brother’s win. 'It's overwhelming.' Getty Images -
Brother: Jim Biden. Seventy-year-old Jim has been at his brother’s side throughout the campaign. 'He has been at his older brother’s side at nearly every critical juncture in Joe’s personal and political life,' notes political website Propublica. 'As fundraiser for his brother’s first Senate race in 1972, he helped launch Joe’s political career.' Getty Images -
Daughter-in-law: Hallie Biden. The widow of the late Beau Biden, who she married in 2002, 45-year-old Hallie began dating her brother-in-law Hunter in 2016, a year after Beau died. 'We were sharing a very specific grief,' Hunter told 'The New Yorker'. 'I started to think of Hallie as the only person in my life who understood my loss.' Reuters -
Daughter-in-law: Melissa Cohen. The South African filmmaker married Hunter in May 2019, and the pair has a child together, a son, whose name or photos they have chosen not to reveal. Hunter proposed less than a week after their first date, with then-Vice President Biden telling Cohen: 'Thank you for giving my son the courage to love again.' AP Photo -
Son-in-law: Howard Krein. Married to Joe’s daughter, Ashley, the pair was introduced by her half-brother, Beau, and they married in 2012. Krein, 39, is assistant professor of otolaryngology at Thomas Jefferson University and a founding partner and co-director of Thomas Jefferson University Hospital’s Facial Aesthetic and Reconstructive Centre. AFP
“You must go through the first Christmas, the first birthday, the first snow,” he said, while also referencing a chain of everyday events that need to be lived through before the process of restoration can start.
“I think it is getting by those things once. Once you have done that, I think then you are able to begin to recover,” he added. It is a clip of genuine candour and grace delivered by the man who will move into the White House next month, one that was coaxed out of him by one of the all-time great broadcasters.
In this year of such great disruption and uncertainty, those words have such deep resonance more than 30 years later.
Mapping the coronavirus pandemic's progress, to date more than 68 million people have contracted Covid-19 worldwide and more than 1.5 million have died, most of us will find ourselves caught somewhere between the deprivation, anger and despair that Mr Biden referred to more than 30 years ago in his own grief.
The scale of our collective loss this year defies comprehension. For many it has meant the hard loss of livelihoods, friends and family or time not spent with those we care about. The loss of our old way of life has been devastating in one way or another. The process of finding new ways to live amid the chaos has been less rehabilitating than it would have been if the journey towards the so-called "new normal" had been voluntary rather than imposed upon us by circumstance. Echoing Mr Biden’s words, the road to true recovery may involve our own “one season of everything” to get past the pandemic, to restore shattered confidence and rebuild certainty.
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Omanis bid farewell to their leader during the funeral procession for Sultan Qaboos. AFP / Oman TV -
People attend a funeral service for Sultan Qaboos, at the Grand Mosque that bears his name in Muscat. Oman TV via AP -
Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, left, offers condolences to Sultan Haitham in Muscat. MBZ/Twitter -
Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed with Sultan Haitham. Ministry of Presidential Affairs -
Prayers and funeral rites are held for Sultan Qaboos. AFP / Oman TV -
Oman's newly sworn-in Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said carries the coffin of his cousin, Sultan Qaboos, during the funeral in Muscat. Reuters -
Members of the Omani military carry the coffin of Sultan Qaboos. AFP -
Omanis take part in the funeral of Sultan Qaboos at the Grand Mosque in the capital Muscat. AFP -
The coffin is carried to the Grand Mosque. Oman TV via AP -
Sultan Haitham arrives at the Grand Mosque for the funeral. AFP / Oman TV -
A motorcade carries the body of Sultan Qaboos. Oman TV via AP -
Sultan Qaboos had ruled Oman for almost 50 years, after coming to power in 1970. Oman TV via AP -
People gather in front of the Sultan Qaboos Mosque to perform funeral prayers. AFP -
The streets of Muscat were packed as Omanis grieved over the death of Sultan Qaboos. AFP -
Authorities declared a 40-day mourning period in the country. AFP -
Omanis gather to enter the Sultan Qaboos Mosque to perform funeral prayers. AFP -
People walk towards the Sultan Qaboos Mosque to perform the funeral prayers. AFP -
The Omani flag is seen at half-mast in the capital Muscat. AFP
Like every year, this one has also been marked by the deaths of many public figures, celebrities and leaders, including Sultan Qaboos and Sheikh Sabah, Diego Maradona, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sean Connery, Magda Al Sabahi, Christo, Lina Ben Mhenni, Saeb Erekat … any such list could stretch on for page after page if space permitted. Any omissions on this very short list are due to compression not oversight.
The complexities of today mean that a lot of those deaths have felt particularly poignant this year, because the general sense of loss we have all experienced has been compounded by the fog and confusion of the pandemic. And because the scale of the disruption and the associated amount of information we have all had to deal with has been so abnormally huge, the scars these deaths leave behind seem deeper and somehow more permanent this year.
Dr Sarah Rasmi, psychologist and managing director of Thrive Wellbeing Centre in Dubai, told me this week that people are “saturated” by the pandemic’s information overload, meaning that there is much less room for most of us to properly process the unexpected.
“We are all grieving the loss of so many things, but at the same time we are being bombarded by information,” she said.
Despite the physical disconnection that has been a feature of this year’s stay-at-home orders, we are all much more connected and plugged in than ever before, which may feed the overall sense of confusion we feel when we hear that another public figure has died.
“We probably have more opportunities to continue to read more and more, sustaining some of that grief and maybe perpetuating it, so it stays top of mind,” she said.
The narrative of catastrophe and loss brings something else, too.
One of the unexpected more positive consequences of this collective grief and heightened connection, Dr Rasmi said, is that we end up crossing socio-cultural divides and “people really bind together” in their loss.
“Being online and being in a position where we are connected to more people, we have had more opportunities to express and share in that grief, albeit virtually,” Dr Rasmi said.
Returning to The Frost Tapes, Mr Biden offered some further thoughts on his own journey back from grief: "You never forget, but in time, the memory brings a smile to your lips rather than a tear to your eye."
This year has been one we will never forget. The generally positive news about global vaccine delivery and effectiveness this week may mean the tears dry up soon and allow us all to move forward. Let's hope that in time the memories of 2020 will be less tinged with sadness than they currently are.
Nick March is an assistant editor-in-chief at The National
