A helluva party

Had they lived, my parents would be right around Joe Biden’s age. Neither of them made it to eighty. My mom died a few years ago, in her early seventies, after a series of compounding health problems beginning with a cancer diagnosis. My dad was only 39 when he died, following a strange sequence of events beginning with police finding him unconscious outside of his car and ending when he, unexpectedly, died in the hospital several months later. Last night, I couldn’t help but thinking of them both following CNN analyst Scott Jennings’ assertion that Joe Biden was “delivering his own eulogy” at the opening night of the Democratic National Convention.

The comment rubbed me the wrong way. What we saw last night wasn’t a funeral. Instead. it one of the greatest retirement parties ever thrown. At best, most retirees receive an ice cream cake and a wristwatch, not thousands upon thousands of well-wishers cheering his name. Half a century of service to a nation is cause for celebration. Last night, Joe Biden got his ice cream cake – and nobody loves ice cream more than Joe Biden – but he also got a much rarer gift. He got to see something my own dad never did, his own decades of work paying off.

“Where’s my damned wristwatch?” (PHOTO by Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Regardless of one’s political leanings, there’s no doubt that Joe Biden is one of the most consequential figures in American history. Not the most dynamic, not the best spoken. Never the shiniest penny, his legislative accomplishments as president weren’t the flashiest. Infrastructure and insulin don’t get the heart racing. Stabilizing the country may not be as glamorous as stirring the nation, but after four years of Trump turbulence, Joe Biden’s quiet avuncular presidency was what we needed - and it’s what we got. The interruptions Joe Biden dealt with last night weren’t from protestors or press. They were from Democrats, on their feet, saying thank you.

My dad worked for AT&T during that company’s divestiture. My parents were divorced and Dad had visitation with us kids every other weekend. Towards the end of his life, though, there were many such weekends when we hardly got to see him at all because he was so busy with work and with trying to earn a Master’s Degree at night. Of course, he had no idea his life would soon be over. If he had, I suspect he would have done things differently. Nobody knows what life is going to hand them. Not my parents, not me, not the President of the United States.

However he finally came to the decision to step down, Joe Biden is a lucky dude. For one thing, most retirees aren’t allowed to stay on the job they love for an additional six months. They don’t get to keep flying around in the company jet. They don’t get to hand-pick their successor. The cardboard box they carry out of the office almost never holds a Presidential Medal of Freedom (and a presidential pension). It’s a good way to end the professional life of a man who gave everything but who, as he said, received so much more back.

His daughter, Ashley, introduced him. His wife, children, and grandchildren got to watch the man they love receive his flowers and they got to hug him and thank him for being their Pop. He got to see his Vice President stand on the stage with him, look him in the eyes and say, “I love you so much.” What an honor and what a gift.

Legacies are peculiar things. Each of us gets one, but we rarely get to dictate its terms. Joe Biden’s legacy is secured, and he’s the one that secured it. I don’t know how historians will measure him, of course, or whether Kamala will win. But I think it’s clear at this point that handing off the nomination to another was the right call. The enthusiasm and energy in the DNC last night was all the proof he needed. That (sorry to use this already overused word) joy was as much about celebrating him as her. Last night, the Democratic Party felt like an extension of, not just Joe Biden’s presidency, but his family.

I wish my own family had survived long enough to pass the generational torch, and I hope I live long enough to do the same for my own kids. We rarely get to dictate how we leave. Jobs gets lost, families break apart, death visits us all. Thankfully, my mom lived long enough to see her kids settled. She got to know her grandkids. My dad never got that chance. He never received the gift the Democrats were able to bestow on Joe Biden last night. And he was never able to give the gift, as Joe Biden gave to the rest of us, of his blessings for what is, hopefully, to come. I’ve been a part of eulogies. What we saw last night wasn’t that. It was a party, bittersweet perhaps, but no less celebratory for its complexity. Thanks, Joe. Enjoy your ice cream.