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In 1972 Joe Biden was elected to the Senate and a week later his wife and daughter were killed in a car crash.  In a 2012 speech, Joe Biden talked about the constant weight of grief.  He says, “Just when you think, ‘Maybe I’m going to make it,’ you’re riding down the road and you pass a field and you see a flower, and it reminds you.  Or you hear a tune on the radio.  Or you just look up in the night.  You know, you think, ‘Maybe I’m not going to make it,’ because you feel at that moment the way you felt the day you got the news.”

Joe doesn’t say in that speech that grief goes away, but he does say, “Eventually, grief makes room for other things, too.”

He also says, “There will come a day—I promise you and your parents—when the thought of your son or daughter, or your husband or wife, brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye.”  Biden says, “It will happen.”

(In May of 2015 Joe Biden buried another child, Beau, who died after a battle with brain cancer.)

Hear more:  Joe Biden’s Heartfelt Speech on Grief