Biden Family Honors Beau in Delaware on Ninth Anniversary of His Death

After visiting the church where his son is buried, President Joe Biden also stopped by the nearby Veterans Memorial Park to lay flowers

Joe Biden paid tribute to his late son, Beau Biden, on Thursday, May 30 — the ninth anniversary of his death.

President Biden, 81, and his wife Dr. Jill Biden, 72, brought their family to visit St. Joseph Catholic Church in Wilmington, Del., where their son Beau — the state’s former attorney general, who died of brain cancer in 2015 at age 46 — is buried.

The first couple arrived at the church around 7:30 a.m., joined by other members of their family, including the president's second son, Hunter Biden, who is set to stand trial for firearm charges on June 3.

Roughly an hour after arriving for a private service, the Bidens departed the church grounds to head to the nearby Veterans Memorial Park in New Castle, Del.

The president departed the motorcade without his loved ones and greeted former Delaware state Sen. Nancy Cook, who was present with her son Thomas Cook, CEO of the Delaware River and Bay Authority.

Biden propped flowers against the memorial and had a brief conversation with the former politician, thanking her for contributing to his success.

In photos captured at both locations, Biden is seen wearing a blue suit with a striped tie. At the memorial park, he wore sunglasses and also greeted Delaware National Guard Maj. Gen. Michael Berry.

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The president’s visit came to an end around 9 a.m. when the motorcade reached the airport at the Delaware Air National Guard and he boarded Marine One.

In 2020, Biden spoke with PEOPLE about coping with the loss of his son. “You've got to find purpose — particularly a purpose that is consistent with what the person you've lost would want you to be doing," he said while on the campaign trail in Iowa.

"Part of going through it publicly is ... it puts you in a position where you either are going to walk away from trying to give hope and comfort to somebody ... or you engage it and it's hard," he said.

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"But at least you get satisfaction, in my case at least, from knowing that that's what my deceased wife would have wanted me to do; that's what my son would want me to do," he added.

Last year, Biden mentioned Beau, who was deployed with the Delaware Army National Guard for a year in Iraq from 2008 until 2009, during his Memorial Day address at Arlington National Cemetery, according to CNN.

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“Tomorrow marks eight years since we lost our son Beau,” he said at the time. “Our loss is not the same — he didn’t perish in the battlefield, it was cancer that stole him … after being deployed as a major in the United States Army National Guard in Iraq. As it is for so many of you, the pain of his loss is with us every day, but particularly sharp on Memorial Day.”

Beau was Delaware's attorney general from 2007 until 2015. He received a Bronze Star Medal during his tour and delegated his daily duties as attorney general while serving in the Middle East. At the time of his death, he was seeking the Democratic nomination for Delaware governor.

Beau and his brother, Hunter, survived the 1972 car crash that killed President Biden's first wife, Neilia Hunter Biden, and their infant daughter, Naomi. Biden also shares a fourth child, daughter Ashley, with Jill.

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