Though it certainly doesn't absolve him of all criticism, President Joe Biden has endured several tragic and heartbreaking losses over the years that have earned him a modicum of sympathy even from his political rivals.

Biden and his family marked the anniversary of one of those sad events earlier this week with a memorial service in honor of his deceased first wife and daughter, the Associated Press reported.

That loss, which occurred shortly after he was first elected as a U.S. senator from Delaware, nearly ended his 50-year-plus political career just as it was getting started.

Memorial for the death of his first wife and daughter

On Wednesday, President Biden, the first lady, plus his son and grandson were spotted attending a private memorial service at the St. Joseph on the Brandywine Roman Catholic Church near his Delaware home in Wilmington.

The solemn occasion was the 52nd anniversary of the fatal car crash in 1972 that claimed the lives of his first wife, Neilia, 30, and their daughter, Naomi, 1, following a collision with a semi-truck while out shopping for a Christmas tree. Biden's two sons, Beau and Hunter, who were 3 and 2 at the time, respectively, were severely injured but survived the wreck.

Following the private ceremony inside the church, the Biden family then walked outside to the church's attached graveyard to pay their respects at the final resting place for the deceased mother and daughter.

Notably, Biden's eldest son Beau, who succumbed to brain cancer in 2015, is also buried in that same graveyard near his late mother.

Recently recalled the moment he was informed of the fatal accident

Newsweek reported that throughout his decades-long political career, President Biden has often openly discussed the tragic and heartbreaking loss of his first wife and daughter, albeit sometimes with differing details about what occurred.

The most recent example of such came just last week when Biden addressed a Christmas dinner in the East Room of the White House and spoke to members of the Kennedy/Shriver families about how the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) had helped him cope with the deaths that occurred after he'd won his election but before he'd been sworn in as a senator.

"And shortly after I got elected, I had to wait 17 days to be eligible to be sworn in -- but in the meantime, on the anniversary coming up on the 18th of this month, I was down in Teddy’s office -- Teddy Kennedy’s office, who took care of me -- hiring staff," Biden recalled.

"And I got a phone call from my local fire department, telling me there had been an accident," he added. "And the poor firewoman they put on the call for me said -- I said, 'How are they?' They said, 'Uh, uh, um, she’s dead. Your daughter is dead. And I’m not sure your two sons will make it.'"

Sworn in by his sons' hospital bedside

Biden's sons ultimately recovered from the injuries sustained in the car wreck that killed their mother and sister, and Biden was even sworn into office while standing in his son's hospital room, which led to his oft-noted tradition of making a daily commute on Amtrak from Delaware to Washington D.C. and back again throughout much of his senatorial career.

As for his second wife, Jill, they were married in 1977, and she reportedly embraced his two young sons, Beau and Hunter, as her own before providing him with another daughter, Ashley.