Joe Biden's life of resilience in the face of unbearable loss will take on new meaning when he steps up to deliver his inaugural address Wednesday as the nation's 46th President.
Destiny has paired America's new leader -- a man rocked by tragedy who found the strength to heal his own soul -- with a sick, hurting nation that needs to summon similar steel to beat its harrowing crises.
Biden's overflowing empathy was forged in the unfathomable horror of burying his first wife, infant daughter and adult son. Just as he comforted bereaved supporters on countless campaign trail rope lines, he is now assuming the nation's grief over more than 400,000 deaths in the coronavirus pandemic. After finding new reason to live following his own bereavements, he's challenging Americans to honor their losses by uniting to win the battle to restore normal life.
"I know these are dark times, but there is always light," an emotional Biden said before leaving his beloved Delaware for the mission for which he's spent a lifetime preparing.
The new president will also offer ambitious new plans to combat economic blight caused by lockdowns and promises to cross party lines to ease the country's embittered internal political estrangement.
His inaugural address will symbolically turn the page from the "American carnage" wrought by his predecessor and also herald a new dawn in which decency will be returned to the Oval Office.
At a time of national angst, it will seek to rekindle the quintessential American creed that tomorrow can be better than today. As he assumes the burdens of office, Biden, in the words of one of his favorite Irish poets, Seamus Heaney, will seek to create a moment when "hope and history rhyme."
After a political system designed to thwart untamed power weathered President Donald Trump's assault, the new president will able to affirm the survival of American democracy -- even as the inauguration takes place behind high iron fences guarded by thousands of troops.
With vaccines offering the possibility that the pandemic could begin to ease later this year, Biden can also conjure the prospect of better days within reach.
And the swearing-in of Kamala Harris, America's first female, first Black and first South Asian vice president, will deliver qualified progress in the halting march to racial justice and gender equality.
Biden's first duty on his return to Washington was to lead a moving sunset vigil under a purple sky at the Lincoln Memorial for those lost -- a step never taken by Trump, a longtime pandemic denier who appeared to believe that dignifying the dead stained his own image.
Lights surround the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, placed as a memorial to COVID-19 victims Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2021, in Washington, after President-elect Joe Biden spoke, with the U.S. Capitol in the background. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The solemn event, featuring Michigan nurse Lori Marie Key, who sang "Amazing Grace," underscored Biden's promises to restore decency to the center of power as he seeks to nurture the country's battered soul.
Under the marbled gaze of the statue of Abraham Lincoln, who took office in perhaps the only time when America has been more divided than today, lines of lights stretched like gravestones towards the distant Washington Monument.
