Jimmy Carter‘s grandson provided an update on the former president’s health more than a year after he entered hospice care.
Jason Carter delivered the update while speaking at the 28th Rosalynn Carter Georgia Mental Health Forum on Tuesday.
“(My grandfather) is doing OK,” Jason said. “He has been in hospice, as you know, for almost a year and a half now, and he really is, I think, coming to the end that, that — as I’ve said before, 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.”
The former president became the oldest living president in 2018 when George H.W. Bush died at the age of 94.
He has survived metastatic brain cancer, liver cancer, and a number of health scares, including brain surgery following a fall in 2019.
Jimmy Carter, now 99, made the decision to enter hospice care at his longtime home in Plains, Georgia in February 2023 after a series of hospital stays. He made a rare public appearance in November 2023 after his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn Carter died.
“My grandmother’s passing was a difficult moment for all of us, including my grandfather,” Jason told the audience at the forum.
“The outpouring of love and support that we as a family received from the people in this room and from the rest of the world was so remarkable and meaningful for us and really turned this process into a celebration.”
During the mental health forum, Jason recalled an exchange he had with his grandfather several weeks earlier while the two watched an Atlanta Braves game together.
“‘People ask me how you’re doing and I say, I don’t know’ and he said, ‘Well, I don’t know myself,’” Jason remembered.
Although he’s lived a long life, it still breaks my heart to hear this news about Jimmy Carter.