Redheaded Reviews: Where the Light Enters:Building a Family, Becoming Myself by Jill BIden

This short book is about Dr. Biden's journey through life seeking a family to build on and finding herself in her work and educational opportunities. Jill grew up in a rambunctious house of five girls and didn't get along with her dad because they were too much alike. It was her mother she turned to for comfort and advice. Growing up she had to go to visit her grandmother who didn't like her because she cemented the marriage between her parents and this grandmother hated Jill's father for not being good enough for her daughter. So she disliked Jill for making it impossible for her to get out of the marriage. Her parent's dealt with it by keeping her at her father's parents' house. She got married at eighteen to a man who wasn't right for her and went to college. Her husband was a huge Joe Biden fan which is how she found herself at one of his rallies meeting his wife Neila, a beautiful person.

Just as Joe's wife and eighteen=month=old daughter were dying in a car crash, Jill's marriage was ending. After time had passed, Joe asked his brother Frankie if he could find the woman on the walls of the plane terminal who was advertising the Parks and Rec. And Frankie who knew her from college as Jill could easily get her phone number which is how he wound up calling her and how they went on three dates in a row. When they had dated for a long time and his sons Hunter and Beau decided that it was time for them to get engaged, Joe asked her and she said "No". He asked her again and she said "No". He asked her a total of five times before she said "Yes".

She decided to stay home with the boys rather than work for now and soon she and Joe were pregnant with Ashley. She would stay home for two years with Ashley before going back to teaching and soon she would go for her Masters. When Joe would become Vice-President she would continue to teach at a community college where hardly anyone there knew that she was the Second Lady.

What impressed me was how she is an introvert and managed to give those speeches to hundreds of people. I too am an introvert and I know I couldn't do that. What was also impressive was her works with the military and their families. Also, the devastation of almost losing Joe to an aneurysm back in 1988 and losing Beau to cancer in 2015.

If you're looking for an insider book on what goes on inside the White House or who the Obamas really are this book isn't for you. This book is a book that introduces you to Dr. Jill Biden and who she is and what she has come through. She is a tough woman who doesn't cry in front of other only because she is too busy being strong for other people and can't take the time to fall apart. She is always thinking of others before herself. I will end this on a Joe Biden story she recounts in her book. The house gets struck by lightning and burnt to the ground. She's naturally upset about losing their home but when Joe arrives he's smiling even though this was a precious house to him and he says Now we can fix the problems in the old house. And she feels better having heard him say that. I give this book five out of five stars.

Quotes

What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life—to strenghten each other in all labour to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of last parting?

-George Elliot (Adam Bede)

One of the advantagesof being disorderly is that oneis contatly making exciting discoveries.

-A.A. Milne

Even our misfortunes are a part of our belongs.

-Antoine De Saint-Exupery

The Bidens have another belief as well:”If you have to ask, it’s too late.” When someone is in need, when thy’re hurting, when they’re overwhlelmed, you don’t wait until they tell you they need help. You give it before they have to ask.

-Jill Biden (Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself p 50)

The only place outside Heaven where you can be perectly safe from all the dandgers and perturbations of love is Hell.

-C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)

Comparison is the thief of joy,

-Theodore Roosevelt

Good marriages push us---not to become someone else but to become the best version of ourselves.

-Jill Biden (Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself p 102)

You can’t have it all, all at once. Who--man or woman—has it all, all at once? Over my lifespan I think I have had it all. But in different periods of time things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

-Ruth Bader Ginsberg

Maybe the strength we gain is simply the knowledge that survival is possible. Mabye it’s the realization that pain isn’t fatal, that it allows you to go back out into the world, breakable bones and all.

-Jill Biden (Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself p 127)

She left before I was done needing her.

-Jill Biden (Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself p132)

Maybe life doesn’t get any better than this, or any worse, and what we get is just what we’re willing to find: small wonders, where they grow.

-Barbara Kingsolver

Success in parenthood means preparing your children to go out into the world and leave you behind.

-Jill Biden (Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself p 170)

Food may not be the answer to world peace, but it’s a start.

-Anthony Bourdain

Faith sees best in the dark.

-Soren Kierkegaard

Some people are so much sunlight to the square inch.

-Walt Whiman