GRAND Magazine - Summer 2020 - 18

cover story
Dr. Jill Biden, author of "Where
the Light Enters," and wife of
Vice President Joe Biden, doesn't
gloss over the difficult parts of
what could look, at the surface,
like a charmed life. There were
high points, of course. During
her eight years as Second Lady,
she developed a close friendship with Michelle Obama, and
together, they founded an organization - Joining Forces - to support military families. She started
the Biden Breast Health Initiative
after several friends battled the
disease. As for the difficult parts,
there was an early marriage that
ended in divorce, the death of her
mother in the middle of the 2008
election campaign, the deployment to Iraq of son Beau, and
then, later, his death from a brain
tumor.

"Among the mementos,
she keeps close by
is a note she's saved
from one of her
granddaughters that
says, 'We can't wait to go
to Nana-tucket.'"

presumed candidate for President.
No one could expect a life that
would take those twists and turns.
Even starting her life with Joe
Biden put her into circumstances
she hadn't planned. She became an
instant mother to two young boys
when she married the senator from
Delaware whose wife and baby
Dr. Jill Biden with her grandchildren, Naomi, Finnegan, Hunter, Maisy, and Natalie. Photographed near their beach
daughter had died in an auto accihouse in Delaware. Sittings Editor: Phyllis Posnick.Photographed by Annie Leibovitz, Vogue, July 2019
dent three years prior. Did she have
Yes, the book talks about those things, but there's
doubts about taking on that role?
more. It's about the moments inside the Biden family
She admits she did. Joe Biden had to propose to her
and the Biden household that people never see. It's
five times before she accepted. In addition to his own
the family traditions and the family jokes and the times desire to marry her, he'd been told by his boys, "We
"Joe Biden had to propose to her when one or another member of the family was going should marry Jill."
Jill Biden's memoir begins as she is sitting in the
five times before she accepted. In through something important, difficult, or even tragic.
Through all the highs and lows, Jill Biden has "got this." sunroom of the Biden home in Wilmington, Delaware,
addition to his own desire to marry
As 24-year-old Jill Jacobs, she met and then married surveying family photos and mementos. The objects
Senator, who later ran for President, who became
there all have special meaning, including, as she says
her, he'd been told by his boys, "We aVice
President, who decided not to run for President
"finger paintings of cats and salamanders, an acrylic
because his son had recently lost his life at a much too man, and a pen-and-ink blue-footed dragon - all origshould marry Jill."
young age. She now finds herself as the wife of the
inal artwork from the grandkids."

"
18 GRAND

Summer 2020

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GRAND Magazine - Summer 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of GRAND Magazine - Summer 2020