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Its my facebook posting

Beau
I've known Beau since he was seven. I met him one evening in the Senate dining room in the fall of 1976 when I joined then Senator Biden, his fiancé, Jill, Beau, his brother Hunter and his then chief of staff, Ted Kaufman. I thought we were having dinner. I didn't realize I was being interviewed for a job by the Biden family. The shy beautiful little toe headed boy listened intently as his father asked me a series of questions. I was so taken by the Biden "family" I ended up working for them for 13 years. And in some respects I feel like I have never left.
Thirty six years later, in March 2012, Beau had grown into this inspiring political leader, the Attorney General of Delaware. I was, because of his father, the US Ambassador to Romania. The center piece of my mandate was fighting against corruption and in favor of transparency. So when it came time to dedicate our new embassy building in Bucharest I wanted as a speaker, a US leader who embodied what I was hoping for Romania, uncompromising principle, courage and intelligence. Who better than Beau Biden, the crusading Attorney General of Delaware, who was unafraid to speak truth to power, including the titans of finance and industry, many of whom were incorporated or headquartered in Wilmington?
Of course, Beau didn't disappoint. He gave powerful speeches at the dedication and as keynoter of a conference on anticorruption the embassy organized in Bucharest. That evening as we unwound at a dinner Libby and I held at the residence, I watched with pride as Romanian leaders and Americans who were visiting Romania as our guests listened keenly to Beau. I've heard from several of the Americans in the last few days, citizens of great accomplishment and of every political stripe. They all said, in essence, the same thing. "Mark, you lost a friend. America lost a real leader".
Beau, the young kid I met 40 years ago was truly a "great" man. It reminded me of a poem that I first read in a Jewish prayer book in the section dedicated to readings at the time of the death of a dear one. It's by Stephen Spender:
"I think continually of those who were truly great.
Who, from the womb, remembered the soul's history
...
The names of those who in their lives fought for life,
Who wore at their hearts the fire's centre.
Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun
And left the vivid air signed with their honour."
What a privilege it was to know Beau. Above and beyond the great personal loss we feel for Beau we should also remember what Delaware and America have lost.
Then Senator Biden and I spent many hours in the 1980's writing speeches on everything from the rule of law, the constitution and the state of American politics. I have fond and enduring memories of late night sessions over pizza discussing the question of why the good die young. As boomers we had seen our heroes murdered, John & Robert Kennedy, Dr King, even younger than Beau.
Its hard to find solace, to mend a "broken heart" at times like this. But I've learned a few things in the last 40 years and one is the wisdom of the Jewish prayer for mourning the dead, the Kaddish. The departed is not mentioned in the prayer. It's a prayer for the mourner not the departed. The last stanza of one translation reads in part:
" May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and good life, satisfaction, help, comfort refuge, healing, redemption, forgiveness, atonement, relief and salvation for us and for all his people."
So while I still don't know why good people like Beau die young, I have some notion of what we're supposed to do about it. As difficult as it may be, we need to follow the teaching of the Kaddish: to celebrate life, to draw every loved one a bit closer, especially those of us in the "Biden orbit". And as for Beau, remember him for what he was as his father said, "the finest man any of us have ever known."
And most important, knowing we won't completely succeed, try to be a little bit like Beau, good, compassionate, courageous fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, citizens and leaders. If we keep that dream, that ideal, that memory alive in the face of this unbearable pain we can begin to mend our "broken hearts".


Mark Gitenstein
Mayer Brown LLP
1999 K st NW
Washington, DC, 20006-1101
+1202-263-3371


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