What Will You Miss about the Last Four Years?

A Saturday prompt

Whatever you think about the presidency of Joe Biden and his policy choices, accomplishments and failures, no one can deny that he is a real and empathic human being. He’s an emotional man, one who’s not afraid to express his tender feelings. That particularly includes his love for his wife, Jill, with whom he’s been married for 47 years. Just as he was departing Delaware in 2021 to head to the White House, the president-elect said, “She makes me strong, as Ernest Hemingway wrote, ‘in all the broken places.’”

We have regularly seen that expression of love not just in words, but in his deeds. The way he would hold her hand, touch her cheek and pause to look at her as if she were still his blushing young bride. In those early months, when they’d be on the White House lawn and playing with their dog, Champ, you could see the easy exchange between them. It was a welcome relief from the cold, frustrated and unhappy dynamic that we witnessed from Trump and his wife.

And when Champ passed away in June that first year, President Biden and the First Lady released a statement that you didn’t doubt was a genuine expression of their sorrow: “In our most joyful moments and in our most grief-stricken days, he was there with us, sensitive to our every unspoken feeling and emotion. We love our sweet, good boy and will miss him always."

In a couple of days, we will be careening into a second Trump regime. That means enduring an abundance of cruelty and hate, both in terms of policies and in the attitudes and expressions of the man who will occupy our White House. We already know that there’s little love to be found between the couple that the American electorate has chosen to reinstall. We already know that this man despises acts of kindness, doesn’t like dogs and prefers to surround himself with abusive predators. Love and decency—two ingredients in the package that defines authentic leadership and are sorely needed in powerful, high-visibility role models—will be absent for the next four years. That is just one of many tragedies that we will have to endure as we look forward toward better times.

That’s why I wanted to pause this morning and think about what I will miss with the departure on Monday of President Joe Biden and the family that he dearly loves. I wish that I could say that his many speeches expressing his belief in the value of democracy and the principle of equality had translated into his welcoming Vice President Kamala Harris into the Oval Office. But here we are. I can only hope that his regular talk about Americans being treated with dignity and respect and everyone getting a fair shot is a sound track just put on hold for now, rather than a forlorn, nostalgic articulation of the way things used to be that won’t be coming back.

I’ll keep in mind Scranton Joe’s regular reminder that “when you get knocked down, you get back up.” That always sounded like a hard-earned message from a man who’s survived unimaginable tragedies and refused to doubt that he could keep going on. Along with love and decency in the White House, I’ll miss that kind of simple (and yes, rather corny) wisdom from a genuine human who attained the highest peak of power.

So what about you? What will you miss about the last four years? Are there particular memories that you will hold onto as you manage the tumult that lies ahead?

As always, I look forward to reading your observations and for this community to learn from each other. Please do be respectful in your remarks. Trolling will not be tolerated.

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*Photo: From the president’s Instagram page, posted in June last year to commemorate Jill Biden’s 73rd birthday. It included this inscription: “Happy birthday to the love of my life, the life of my love, and the rock of our family.”