President Biden set aside time from his Memorial Day schedule Monday to visit the grave of his late son Beau Biden at a Delaware church cemetery on the seventh anniversary of his death.
Biden, accompanied by first lady Jill Biden, carried flowers as the couple approached the gravesite at Saint Joseph on the Brandywine Catholic Church in Wilmington.
Other family members visiting Beau’s final resting place included the president’s grandchildren and his sister, Valerie Biden Owens.
The family paid their respects after attending morning Mass at the church.
Beau Biden, a veteran of the Iraq war and the former attorney general of Delaware, died of brain cancer on May 30, 2015.
He was 46.
The president frequently references his late son in speeches, usually either to highlight Beau’s military service or show grieving families that he understands the main of premature loss.
“My son spent a year in Iraq, won the Bronze Star, Conspicuous Service Medal,” Biden said Friday during remarks at the US Naval Academy’s commencement exercises. He then added: “I lost him.”
After the visit, the president boarded Marine One for the trip back to Washington.
Beau’s death was merely the latest family tragedy to befall the president’s family. Biden’s 1-year-old daughter, Naomi, and his first wife, Neilia, Beau’s mother, died in a car crash in December 1972. They are buried in the same cemetery.
Beau and his brother Hunter survived the crash.
