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Internet unearths Joe Biden’s touching 1994 letter to a boy with a speech impediment

Two decades later, Joe Biden was reminded of the impact of a simple handwritten letter.

Photo of Josh Katzowitz

Josh Katzowitz

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When Beau Biden, the son of Vice President Joe Biden, died at the end of May, the nation, with the possible exception of Ted Cruz, mourned his loss.

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This week, though, a man named Skip Brooks made one of the most touching gestures of all. First, Brooks—a former prosecutor in Delaware who had a speech impediment as a kid—tweeted this.

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As the note from Biden reads,

Dear Brandon,

It was a pleasure meeting you yesterday. You are a fine — bright — young man with a great future ahead of you if you continue to work hard. Remember what I told you about stuttering. You can beat it just like I did. When you do, you will be a stronger man for having won. Also remember, every time you are tempted to make fun of someone with a problem, how it feels when you are made fun of. Treat everyone with respect and you will be respected yourself.

Your friend, Joe Biden

Brooks went on to write that after Biden noticed that the eighth-grader had a stutter, he took him aside and told the youngster that Biden never let his own stutter interfere with his life goals and that he would go out of his way to speak in public or act in plays in order to force himself to overcome his impediment.

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And more proof that this exchange actually happened.

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At the time, Biden was a U.S. senator from Delaware, and the gesture he made—and the time it took him to write the letter—is heartwarming. But the story gets better.

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Biden, or whomever runs Biden’s Twitter account, noticed Brooks’s tweet and responded in kind.

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And then, the heartwarming conclusion.

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But these kinds of tales aren’t necessarily so rare for Biden and his former First State constituents. As Brooks told the Daily Mail, “In Delaware, everybody has a Joe Biden story.”

Photo via Skip Brooks/Twitter