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President Obamas Eulogy at Beau Bidens Funeral

(by Maya Rhodan)
President Obama delivered a heartfelt eulogy at Beau Bidens1 funeral in Delaware on
Saturday. Here is a full transcript of his remarks, as delivered:
A man, wrote an Irish poet, is original when he speaks the truth that has always been known
to all good men. Beau Biden was an original. He was a good man. A man of character. A man who
loved deeply, and was loved in return.
Your Eminences, your Excellencies, General Odierno, distinguished guests; to Hallie, Natalie
and Hunter; to Hunter, Kathleen, Ashley, Howard; the rest of Beaus beautiful family, friends,
colleagues; to Jill and to Joe we are here to grieve with you, but more importantly, we are here
because we love you.
Without love, life can be cold and it can be cruel. Sometimes cruelty is deliberate - the action
of bullies or bigots, or the inaction of those indifferent to anothers pain. But often, cruelty is simply
born of life, a matter of fate or Gods will, beyond our mortal powers to comprehend. To suffer such
faceless, seemingly random cruelty can harden the softest hearts, or shrink the sturdiest. It can make
one mean, or bitter, or full of self-pity. Or, to paraphrase an old proverb, it can make you beg for a
lighter burden.
But if youre strong enough, it can also make you ask God for broader shoulders; shoulders
broad enough to bear not only your own burdens, but the burdens of others; shoulders broad enough
to shield those who need shelter the most.
To know Beau Biden is to know which choice he made in his life. To know Joe and the rest of
the Biden family is to understand why Beau lived the life he did. For Beau, a cruel twist of fate came
early - the car accident that took his mom and his sister, and confined Beau and Hunter, then still
toddlers, to hospital beds at Christmastime.
But Beau was a Biden. And he learned early the Biden family rule: If you have to ask for help,
its too late. It meant you were never alone; you dont even have to ask, because someone is always
there for you when you need them.
And so, after the accident, Aunt Valerie rushed in to care for the boys, and remained to help
raise them. Joe continued public service, but shunned the parlor games of Washington, choosing
instead the daily commute home, maintained for decades, that would let him meet his most cherished
1

Beau Biden is the son of US VP Joe Biden. Beau died of brain cancer at age 46

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duty - to see his kids off to school, to kiss them at night, to let them know that the world was stable
and that there was firm ground under their feet.
As Joe himself confessed to me, he did not just do this because the kids needed him. He did it
because he needed those kids. And somehow, Beau sensed that - how understandably and deeply hurt
his family and his father was. And so, rather than use his childhood trauma as justification for a life of
self-pity or self-centeredness, that very young boy made a very grown-up decision: He would live a
life of meaning. He would live a life for others. He would ask God for broader shoulders.
Beau would guide and look out for his younger brother. He would embrace his new mom apparently, the two boys sheepishly asking their father when they could all marry Jill - and throughout
his life, no one would make Jill laugh harder. He would look after their baby sister, Ashley. He would
forever be the one to do the right thing, careful not to give his family or his friends cause for concern.
Its no secret that a lot of what made Beau the way he was just how much he loved and admired
his dad. He studied law, like his dad, even choosing the same law school. He chased public service,
like his dad, believing it to be a noble and important pursuit. From his dad, he learned how to get back
up when life knocked him down. He learned that he was no higher than anybody else, and no lower
than anybody else - something Joe got from his mom, by the way. And he learned how to make
everybody else feel like we matter, because his dad taught him that everybody matters.
He even looked and sounded like Joe, although I think Joe would be first to acknowledge that
Beau was an upgrade Joe 2.0. (Laughter.) But as much as Beau reminded folks of Joe, he was very
much his own man. He was an original.
Here was a scion of an incredible family who brushed away the possibility of privilege for the
harder, better reward of earning his own way. Here was a soldier who dodged glory, and exuded true
humility. A prosecutor who defended the defenseless. The rare politician who collected more fans than
foes, and the rarer public figure who prioritized his private life above all else.
Beau didnt cut corners. He turned down an appointment to be Delawares attorney general so
he could win it fair and square. When the field was clear for him to run for the Senate, he chose to
finish his job as A.G. instead. He didnt do these things to gain favor with a cynical public - its just
who he was. In his twenties, he and a friend were stopped for speeding outside Scranton. And the
officer recognized the name on the license, and because he was a fan of Joes work with law
enforcement he wanted to let Beau off with a warning. But Beau made him write that ticket. Beau
didnt trade on his name.
After 9/11, he joined the National Guard. He felt it was his obligation - part of what those
broader shoulders are for. He did his duty to his country and deployed to Iraq, and General Odierno
eloquently spoke to Major Bidens service. What I can tell you is when he was loading up to ship out

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at Dover, there was a lot of press that wanted to interview him. Beau refused. He was just another
soldier.
I saw him when I visited Iraq; he conducted himself the same way. His deployment was hard
on Hallie and the kids, like it was for so many families over the last 14 years. It was hard on Joe, hard
on Jill. Thats partly why Jill threw herself into her work with military families with so much intensity.
Thats how you know when Joe thunders may God protect our troops in every speech he does, he
means it so deeply.
Like his father, Beau did not have a mean bone in his body. The cruelty hed endured in his
life didnt make him hard, it made him compassionate, empathetic. But it did make him abhor bullies.
Beaus grandfather, Joes father, believed that the most egregious sin was to abuse your power
to inflict pain on another. So Beau squared his broad shoulders to protect people from that kind of
abuse. He fought for homeowners who were cheated, seniors who were scammed. He even went after
bullying itself. He set up a Child Protector Predator Task Force, convicted more than 200 of those
who targeted vulnerable children. And in all this, he did it in a way that was alive to the suffering of
others, bringing in experts to help spare both the children and their parents further trauma.
Thats who Beau was. Someone who cared. Someone who charmed you, and disarmed you,
and put you at ease. When hed have to attend a fancy fundraiser with people who took themselves
way too seriously, hed walk over to you and whisper something wildly inappropriate in your ear.
(Laughter.) The son of a senator, a Major in the Army, the most popular elected official in Delaware
- Im sorry, Joe - (laughter) but he was not above dancing in nothing but a sombrero and shorts
at Thanksgiving if it would shake loose a laugh from the people he loved. And through it all, he was
the consummate public servant, a notebook in his back pocket at all times so he could write down the
problems of everyone he met and go back to the office to get them fixed.
Because he was a Biden, the titles that come with family - husband, father, son, brother, uncle
- those were the ones Beau valued above any other. This was a man who, at the Democratic National
Convention, didnt spend all his time in backrooms with donors or glad-handing. Instead, he rode the
escalators in the arena with his son, up and down, up and down, again and again, knowing, just like
Joe had learned, what ultimately mattered in life.
You know, anyone can make a name for themselves in this reality TV age, especially in todays
politics. If youre loud enough or controversial enough, you can get some attention. But to make that
name mean something, to have it associated with dignity and integrity - that is rare. Theres no
shortcut to get it. Its not something you can buy. But if you do right by your children, maybe you can
pass it on. And what greater inheritance is there? What greater inheritance than to be part of a family
that passes on the values of what it means to be a great parent; that passes on the values of what it

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means to be a true citizen; that passes on the values of what it means to give back, fully and freely,
without expecting anything in return?
Thats what our country was built on - men like Beau. Thats who built it - families like this.
We dont have kings or queens or lords. We dont have to be born into money to have an impact. We
dont have to step on one another to be successful. We have this remarkable privilege of being able to
earn what we get out of life, with the knowledge that we are no higher than anybody else, or lower
than anybody else. We know this not just because it is in our founding documents, but because families
like the Bidens have made it so, because people like Beau have made it so.
He did in 46 years what most of us couldnt do in 146. He left nothing in the tank. He was a
man who led a life where the means were as important as the ends. And the example he set made you
want to be a better dad, or a better son, or a better brother or sister, better at your job, the better soldier.
He made you want to be a better person. Isnt that finally the measure of a man - the way he lives,
how he treats others, no matter what life may throw at him?
We do not know how long weve got here. We dont know when fate will intervene. We cannot
discern Gods plan. What we do know is that with every minute that weve got, we can live our lives
in a way that takes nothing for granted. We can love deeply. We can help people who need help. We
can teach our children what matters, and pass on empathy and compassion and selflessness. We can
teach them to have broad shoulders.
To the Biden family, this sprawling, intimate clan - I know that Beaus passing has left a
gaping void in the world. Hallie, I can only imagine the burdens that youve been carrying on your
shoulders these past couple of years. And its because you gave him everything that he could give
everything to us. And just as you were there for him, well be there for you.
To Natalie and Hunter - there arent words big enough to describe how much your dad loved
you, how much he loved your mom. But I will tell you what, Michelle and I and Sasha and Malia,
weve become part of the Biden clan. Were honorary members now. And the Biden family rule
applies. Were always here for you, we always will be my word as a Biden. (Laughter.)
To Joe and Jill - just like everybody else here, Michelle and I thank God you are in our lives.
Taking this ride with you is one of the great pleasures of our lives. Joe, you are my brother. And Im
grateful every day that youve got such a big heart, and a big soul, and those broad shoulders. I couldnt
admire you more.
I got to know Joes mom, Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden, before she passed away. She was
on stage with us when we were first elected. And I know she told Joe once that out of everything bad
that happens to you, something good will come if you look hard enough. And I suppose she was

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channeling that same Irish poet with whom I began today, Patrick Kavanagh, when he wrote, And I
said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.
As hard as it is right now, through all the heartache and through all the tears, it is our obligation
to Beau to think not about what was and what might have been, but instead to think about what is,
because of him. Think about the day that dawns for children who are safer because of Beau, whose
lives are fuller, because of him. Think about the day that dawns for parents who rest easier, and families
who are freer, because of him. Some folks may never know that their lives are better because of Beau
Biden. But thats okay. Certainly for Beau, acclaim was never the point of public service.
But the lines of well-wishers whove been here all week they know. The White House
mailroom thats been overflowing with letters from people those folks know. The soldiers who
served with Beau, who joined the National Guard because of him. The workers at Verdis who still
have their home because of him, and who thanked him for helping them bus tables one busy night. The
students in Newark who remember the time he talked with them for hours, inexhaustible, even after
giving a speech, even after taking his National Guard fitness test. The Rehoboth woman whos saved
a kind voicemail from him for five years, and wrote to say I loved the way he loved his family. And
the stranger who wrote from halfway across this great country just to say, The only thing we can hope
for is that our children make us proud by making a difference in the world. Beau has done that and
then some. The world noticed.
Jill, Joe, Hallie, Hunter and Natalie the world noticed. They noticed. They felt it, his
presence. And Beau lives on in the lives of others. And isnt that the whole point of our time here? To
make this country we love fairer and more just, not just for Natalie and Hunter, or Naomi, or Finnegan,
or Maisy, or Malia, or Sasha, but for every child? Isnt that what this amazing journey weve been on
is all about - to make life better for the next generation?
Beau figured that out so early in life. What an inheritance Beau left us. What an example he
set.
Through our great good fortune, in our youth our hearts were touched with fire, said Oliver
Wendell Holmes, Jr. But, above all, we have learned that whether a man accepts from Fortune her
spade, and will look downward and dig, or from Aspiration her axe and cord, and will scale the ice,
the one and only success which it is his to command is to bring to his work a mighty heart.
Beau Biden brought to his work a mighty heart. He brought to his family a mighty heart. What
a good man. What an original.
May God bless his memory, and the lives of all he touched.
Reference: Rhodan, M. (2015, June 6). Read the Full Text of President Obamas Eulogy at Beau Bidens
Funeral. Retrieved from Time: http://time.com/3911699/beau-biden-funeral-barack-obama-eulogy-full-text/
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