At Full Strength

Compassion. Clarity. Confidence. Those are just a few of First Lady Jill Biden's superpowers, and she knows exactly how to unlock them when needed.

- By Liz Baker Plosser

WE'VE JUST FINISHED TALL GLASSES OF ICED TEA IN THE FIRST LADY'S GARDEN ON THE SOUTH LAWN OF THE WHITE HOUSE, and Jill Biden is crouching next to a flourishing mint plant. She's made an impromptu decision to send me back home to Brooklyn with a fresh bouquet, except she doesn't have scissors. Blue eyes twinkling, she procures a medium-size knife from one of the Secret Service agents standing nearby on this breezy, cloudless May day. She had a feeling he'd have one tucked away for her protection. Problem solved.

Smell this, she urges, extending the small bunch of peonies, lilacs, and mint toward me. She's preemptively delighted by the simple pleasures of these blooming spring flowers, the late afternoon sunshine, and, maybe, the opportunity to share some of her First Lady of the United States of America magic with me. I'll return home with a good story for my three young children, and I think she knows it.

Biden, or Dr. B, as her staff calls her, has just shown the kind of moving generosity that might be expected when hosting a journalist at the White House and sitting for a cover profile interview. Yet the gesture feels totally genuine. Her face is luminous, and her posture is poised as she stands in well-worn On Cloud 5 sneakers and a colorblock dress; she strikes me as authentic, warm, and completely at ease with herself. The opposite of performative.

The oldest of five daughters, the 72-year-old grew up outside of Philadelphia. Her mother, Bonny, was the rock of the family, especially after her father died 24 years ago, and Biden tells me that she and her sisters told her everything. Our mother was such a good listener, Biden remembers. She was my role model. When Bonny passed away in 2008, Biden was devastated, but even so, she immediately stepped up to assume the role of mother hen. I feel like I got my inner strength from my mother, she says.