My dad used to have an expression. He said, “It’s a lucky person who gets up in the morning, puts both feet on the floor, knows what they’re about to do and thinks it really matters.”
I’m thankful to be one of those people. I believe that I have been given the opportunity to do something that really matters. Being Vice President has expanded my ability to work on issues that I care deeply about and that got me into public life in the first place.
I’m thankful for my personal relationship with the President. I guess it’s a funny way to say it, but it is personal. There’s a real friendship between us, and I have a great deal of respect for him. The President has entrusted me with some significant responsibilities, and I’m proud that this year we’ve been able to guarantee middle-class families that their taxes won’t go up. Those things matter.
I’m thankful that this job has afforded me the opportunity to not only do things I care about, but to share that opportunity with my family. These years in the White House have been an incredible experience for my sons and my daughter, my grandchildren, my daughters-in-law, and of course my wife Jill – who, in addition to continuing to teach full-time at a community college, is doing important work with military families and on women’s health.
Over the course of two presidential campaigns, we’ve gotten to see most of the country. And my older granddaughters have gotten to see the rest of the world with me. I almost never go on a foreign trip without at least one of them. It’s been wonderful watching the light turn on in the eyes of my teenage granddaughters when they discover the common humanity we share with people all over the world – including those who live in devastation and need help to meet their most basic needs. I think my granddaughters have a much deeper understanding of what a privilege it is to be an American.
So we owe the American people. We’re thankful to Barack for having chosen us, but we owe the American people for the privilege of getting to know them as well as I think we do, and of being able to, God willing, provide some useful service. Happy Thanksgiving.
Joe Biden is Vice President of the United States.
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