Eighteen months after leaving the White House, Joe Biden is living a markedly smaller life. The 83-year-old former president now moves within a tight circle of family members, old friends and longtime aides as he undergoes treatment for metastatic cancer.
The routine of a man who once commanded the world’s attention has contracted sharply. Where his days were once filled with briefings, travel and the constant churn of the presidency, they are now shaped largely by his treatment and the small group of people closest to him. Public appearances have become rare. One of the few in recent months came in November, when he attended Mass at a Roman Catholic church near his home in Wilmington, Delaware.
That withdrawal from public life has not entirely shielded him from renewed scrutiny. An upcoming memoir is expected to revive difficult questions about both his health and his time in office, subjects that dogged the final stretch of his presidency and his decision to seek a second term before ultimately stepping aside. For a figure who spent decades in public service, the book threatens to pull him back into debates he has largely retreated from since leaving Washington.
For now, though, the former president’s world remains a contained one, defined less by the arena of national politics than by treatment, recovery and the company of those who have known him longest.
