^9/13/22 and 9/12/24 respectively
One day shy of exactly two years since I first met President Joe Biden at the White House, I met him again. At the White House.
(I have to pinch myself writing that and then pinch myself again reading it).
When I look at those two photos side by side, I can feel the differences between them immediately. Between the moods and the moments when we took them.
In the first, it’s great big, wide smiles. Feeling happy and hopeful. The bright blue sky and the puffy white clouds painting a cheery, triumphant opening scene.
In the second, it’s consolation. Comfort. Reassurance. Catharsis. The setting sun cast long shadows all around us, as the day, and the scene, came to a quiet, compassionate close.
That’s largely how those two moments felt in real time. And I honestly cannot believe my incredibly good fortune in this very strange yet wonderful rollercoaster life of mine, that it’s even possible for me to make observations like these about a man I love like I loved (and still love) my own dad.
A man who history shall forever regard as one of the greatest President’s this nation has ever known.
And as I sit here a couple of days later reflecting on all of this, and on all of it’s profoundly personal meaning, I recognize some truths about myself at the same time.
I know might drive a little too fast. I might swear with a touch too much frequency. I might not moderate as well as I should when it comes to french fries (who does really). And I might just love Joseph R. Biden a teeny, tiny bit more than the average bear.
But I gotta tell you, and I’m being for real here ok folks, it’s not a joke (she said in a hushed tone with a wink and a smile), I’d drive slow tomorrow while flipping the thumbs up and asking “what the beans is wrong with you” of every driver who takes a wide fucking right turn in front of me without so much as a goddamn signal, and I’d eat whatever the fuck kind of cauliflower bullshit excuse for a fry you put in front of me if I had to. Forever.
But I’ll never be able to love Joe Biden 1/100th of an ounce less than I do right now.
I can’t fathom it. I just can’t.
In fact, quite the contrary, given what he has now sacrificed for all of us, I think I just might love the man more than ever.
In fact, I’m sure of it.
And I know I’m not alone. Ain’t no shame in our game. He deserves our love. He deserves our respect and support. He’s an incredibly decent, kind, gracious, generous and beautiful soul.
He is a true patriot.
And he loves us to a fault too. He loves this country like a 14-year old boy loves his first girlfriend. He’ll do anything for her, even when she treats him like crap in the hallways at school. Even if she doesn’t text him back or tells her besties that he’s kinda boring. Even when she starts making eyes at other boys. Even when she flirts with the school bully.
He loves us and he has spent his entire adult life doing right by us. Holding the door for us. Cleaning the popcorn off the movie seat for us. Putting his suit jacket over our shoulders when we’re cold, moving our chair into the shade when we’re too hot.
He’s always been this way. Always putting the needs of others over himself. You can feel this about him through a tv screen, but being up close to it, being near it, it’s inescapable. The genuine capacity for caring about others he embodies radiates out of him like beams of light.
When we first met, that light was “get in here, we’re having fun kid, let’s give us a smile.”
When we met the other day, the light had changed, but not dulled. It was, “Get in here kid, how you hangin’ in? It’s all gonna be ok you know? Now, let’s give us a smile.”
I don’t know if he recognized me or not. The way his face lit up when I first said my name (this time without the “From New Jersey” part), made me think maybe he had. I’ll never know. But when I said, “I have to take this moment to thank you sir. To thank you from the bottom of my heart…” he pulled me in for a hug and asked me how I was doing. If I was ok. I wanted to tell him how grateful I was for him, for all he’d done, and he wanted me to know that it was all going to be ok.
I told him I was ok but that I was going to miss him terribly. I told him that I didn’t want to say goodbye.
Through my streaming tears, I told him how much he would be missed by so many.
And he leaned in a little bit closer, and he told me that it was all going to be alright. That he wasn’t “going anywhere”, not really.
“We got this.” He said. “I promise you, we got this.”
And he looked me directly in the eyes when he said that in such a way that I knew he was being deadly serious. And also that I shouldn’t worry.
I cannot begin to tell you how much I needed to hear those words. All of it. That he’s not really leaving, and that we were all going to be ok.
I needed to hear that as much as I needed to thank him. I needed him to know how much love so many of us have for him. I needed to tell him that we were never really going to let him go ether. In my way. Through my tears. While standing there hugging him and being hugged back. I told him everything I wanted to say.
And heard everything I wanted to hear at the same time.
Two moments in time, one as my life was beginning to change in ways I couldn’t imagine, and one as my life had changed in ways I couldn’t believe. One at the promising middle of an historic tenure, one at the emotional culmination of a storied career.
Nearly exactly 2 years apart. Like bookends, only not an end to anything at all. Just a place to mark the beginning of the next part of the story.
I know I’m just a mom in Jersey, I know I’m hardly some chosen representative for anyone, lord knows, nor should I be… but I am telling you all right now, that in that moment when I got to say those things to our President, I really did feel like I was speaking for so many. Because I know how many of you feel the way I feel.
How grateful we are. How proud. How much we love him. How much we’ll miss him.
And I know you’d want him to know that too.
So, from all of us — Thank you, President Biden.
This isn’t goodbye. It’s just the start of something new.
And thanks to you, it is all going to be ok.
Thanks to you and to Kamala, we do “got this.”
We love you.
And we’re all going to be ok. Much, much better than just ok.
❤️❤️❤️💙💙💙
Thank you Joe