Jimmy Carter’s grandson Jason said the former president is “experiencing the world as best he can” in hospice care.
Carter, 99, is no longer remaining awake every day, Jason, 48, told Southern Living in an interview published on Friday, June 7.
“After 77 years of marriage … I just think none of us really understand what it’s like for him right now,” Jason said of Carter living without his late wife, Rosalynn, who died last year at age 96. “We have to embrace that fact, that there’s things about the spirit that you just can’t understand.”
Jason told the outlet about a recent trip to Plains, Georgia, where he visited Carter at his facility. “I told him, I said: ‘Pawpaw, you know, when people ask me how you’re doing I say, ‘Honestly, I don’t know,’” Jason recalled. “And he kind of smiled and he said, ‘I don’t know, myself.’”
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Jason reflected on the “sweet” moment he shared with the politician, who was born and raised in the same town he’s staying in now. “[Plains] is the place that has given him the greatest support and it is the only place where he would go through this part of his life,” Jason continued. “That’s his home in every way, and he really cherished that time and that support.”
He characterized Jimmy’s bond with his hometown as “truly remarkable.”
“I think the fact that he and my grandmother both came from that small town — it’s a 600 person village, really — and it’s not near any interstate and it is truly out in the country and it is a fundamental part of who he is and who he has been for his whole life,” Jason said. “There is no other place in the world that he would be at peace other than Plains.”
According to Jason, who is one of Carter’s 22 grandchildren, the house his grandparents have lived in since 1961 will be donated to the National Park Service for public visitation.
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“It is such an American story,” he explained. “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. … It is a really incredible story to go from that little town to the White House and back again.”
The Carter Center announced in February 2023 that the humanitarian entered hospice care following a series of hospital stays. Six months later, his grandson Josh told People that Carter is in his “final chapter” of life. “He’s still fully Jimmy Carter. He’s just tired,” Josh said in August 2023.
Family members have shared further updates on Carter’s condition amid his continued care. Last month, Jason spoke candidly about his grandfather at the annual Rosalynn Carter Georgia Mental Health Forum.
“He really is, I think, coming to the end,” Jason said. “There’s a part of this faith journey that is so important to him, and there’s a part of that faith journey that you only can live at the very end and I think he has been there in that space.”
