‘Best he can’: Jimmy Carter nears 16 months in hospice
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(WJW) – Jimmy Carter’s grandson is updating the health condition of the former president.
Jimmy Carter, 99, is nearing 16 months now in hospice care at his home in Plains, Georgia.
Jason Carter, 48, is the oldest of Jimmy and Rosalynn’s 22 grandchildren. He spoke with Southern Living about his granddad.
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Jason Carter says his grandpa is no longer awake every day and says he’s simply “experiencing the world as best he can” without his wife of 77 years.
“After 77 years of marriage … I just think none of us really understand what it’s like for him right now,” Jason says. “We have to embrace that fact, that there’s things about the spirit that you just can’t understand.”
PLAINS, GA – NOVEMBER 29: Former President Jimmy Carter greets people as he leaves after the funeral service for his wife, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, at Maranatha Baptist Church on November 29, 2023, in Plains, Georgia. Rosalynn Carter, who passed away on November 19 at the age of 96, was married to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter for 77 years. In her lifetime she was an activist and writer known to be an advocate for the elderly, affordable housing, mental health, and the protection of monarch butterflies. (Photo by Alex Brandon – Pool/Getty Images) Former US President Jimmy Carter arrives for the funeral service for his wife, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, at Maranatha Baptist Church, in Plains, Georgia, on November 29, 2023. Carter died on November 19, 2023, at the age of 96, just two days after joining her husband in hospice care at their house in Plains. (Photo by Alex Brandon / POOL / AFP) (Photo by ALEX BRANDON/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) UNITED STATES – JANUARY 01: Usa, Washington, President Jimmy Carter At The Tribune (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images) Photograph of President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter dancing at a White House Congressional Ball. Photographed by Marion S. Trikosko. Dated 1977. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) FILE – President Jimmy Carter, left, and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., greet Biden supporters at a reception in Wilmington, Del., Feb. 20, 1978. Former President Donald Trump is running against President Biden, but Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, keeps bringing up former President Carter. Trump likes to cite the 99-year-old former president as a measuring stick to belittle Biden. (AP Photo) FILE – Former President Jimmy Carter teaches Sunday School class at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown, Aug. 23, 2015, in Plains, Ga. In the year since Jimmy Carter first entered home hospice care, the 39th president has celebrated his 99th birthday, enjoyed tributes to his legacy and outlived his wife of 77 years. Rosalynn Carter, who died in November 2023 after suffering from dementia, spent just a few days under hospice. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File) FILE – In this Nov. 3, 2019, file photo, former President Jimmy Carter teaches Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga. (AP Photo/John Amis, File) FILE – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, left, U.S. President Jimmy Carter, center, and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin clasp hands on the North lawn of the White House as they completed signing of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel in Washington on March, 26, 1979. Egypt has threatened to void its decades-long peace treaty with Israel if Israel begins a large-scale offensive on Rafah, where some 1.4 million Palestinians shelter in densely-packed tent camps on the border with Egypt. (AP Photo/Bob Daugherty, File) FILE – In this Sept. 30, 2018, file photo former President Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter are seen ahead of an NFL football game between the Atlanta Falcons and the Cincinnati Bengals in Atlanta. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter have been best friends and life mates for nearly 80 years. Now with the former first lady’s death at age 96, the former president must adjust to life without the woman who he credits as his equal partner in everything he accomplished in politics and as a global humanitarian after their White House years. (AP Photo/John Amis, File) FILE – In this Dec. 13, 1978, file photo, President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn lead their guests in dancing at the annual Congressional Christmas Ball at the White House in Washington. Jimmy and Rosalynn are celebrating their 77th wedding anniversary, Friday, July 7, 2023. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter have been best friends and life mates for nearly 80 years. Now with the former first lady’s death at age 96, the former president must adjust to life without the woman who he credits as his equal partner in everything he accomplished in politics and as a global humanitarian after their White House years. (AP Photo/Ira Schwarz, File) FILE – President-elect Jimmy Carter, left, with his wife, Rosalynn Carter, Dec. 3, 1976. Rosalynn Carter, the closest adviser to Jimmy Carter during his one term as U.S. president and their four decades thereafter as global humanitarians, died Sunday, Nov. 19, 2023. She was 96. (AP Photo/Charles Harrity, File)
Jason recalled a recent conversation he had with his grandpa.
“I told him, I said: ‘Pawpaw, you know, when people ask me how you’re doing I say, ‘honestly I don’t know,’” Jason recalls. “And he kind of smiled and he said ‘I don’t know, myself.’”
Jason said the family expected Jimmy to be in hospice for only a matter of days.
“God had other plans,” Jason said.
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When Jimmy passes, there will be a state funeral in Washington, D.C. as with former presidents. There will also be a small service in Plains.
Jason says the Carter home, in which they’ve lived since 1961, will be donated to the National Park Service after his passing.
“It is such an American story … to go to Plains and see the house that my grandparents built and lived in for all their time and came home to after being president,” he says. “It really tells a remarkable story of what people can be brought forward by our politics. It is a really incredible story to go from that little town to the White House and back again.”
Jimmy Carter’s 100th birthday, if he continues to defy the odds, is Oct.1, 2024.
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