(July 1) President Joe Biden drew on his own experiences with grief and loss to comfort families affected by the Florida condo collapse, telling them to “never give up hope” even as the search for survivors paused early Thursday, a week after the building came down. Addressing some of the families touched by the tragedy, Biden spoke in deeply personal terms as he offered his prayers and support in the private meeting. “I just wish there was something I could do to ease the pain,” he said in a video posted on Instagram by Jacqueline Patoka, a woman who was close to a couple and their daughter who are still missing. Few public figures connect as powerfully on grief as Biden, who lost his first wife and baby daughter in a car collision and later an adult son to brain cancer. In the first months of his term, he has drawn on that empathy to console those who have lost loved ones, including the more than 600,000 who have died in the COVID-19 pandemic. In a quiet voice freighted with emotion, Biden on Thursday described his own despair at having to wait to find out about how family fared after a crisis like the one experienced in Surfside. He spoke of wanting to switch places with a lost or missing loved one and lamented that “the waiting, the waiting, is unbearable.” “The people you may have lost — they’re gonna be with you your whole life,” he told the families. “A part of your soul, a part of who you are.” Biden told the families that it can be “harder to grieve in public than it is in private, so I know there’s an extra burden on you all.” “But I promise you: I still believe in prayer,” he said. “You’re in my prayers.” Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/2TwO8Gm Bloomberg Quicktake brings you live global news and original shows spanning business, technology, politics and culture. Make sense of the stories changing your business and your world. To watch complete coverage on Bloomberg Quicktake 24/7, visit http://www.bloomberg.com/qt/live, or watch on Apple TV, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, Fire TV and Android TV on the Bloomberg app. Connect with us on… YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Bloomberg Breaking News on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BloombergQuickTakeNews Twitter: https://twitter.com/quicktake Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/quicktake Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quicktake