Former president Jimmy Carter, 99, is ‘coming to the end,’ grandson says

Former US president Jimmy Carter is nearing the apparent end of his life, his grandson said at a policy forum on Tuesday.

“(My grandfather) is doing OK,” Jason Carter told the audience at the Rosalynn Carter Symposium on Mental Health Policy. “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, 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.”

Mr Carter added that the 99-year-old former president still shows signs of his easygoing personality, describing a recent visit to his Plains, Georgia, home to watch an Atlanta Braves MLB game.

“I said, ‘Pa Pa … people ask me how you’re doing and I say I don’t know,’ And he said, ‘Well, I don’t know myself.’ And so, he’s still there,” Jason Carter recounted.

President Carter has been in hospice care since last year. His wife, former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, died in November.

During his remarks at the symposium, Jason Carter spoke about how the family has been processing her death.

“My grandmother’s passing was a difficult moment for all of us, including my grandfather,” he said, adding, “The outpouring of love and support that we, as a family, received from people in this room and from the rest of the world was so remarkable and meaningful to us. And it really turned that whole process into a celebration.”

At almost 100 Jimmy Carter is the oldest living former US president.

In November, Mr Carter appeared for the first time in public since entering hospice care, when he attended Rosalynn Carter’s funeral.

The former first lady was known for her mental health advocacy, and Jason Carter spoke about how mental health considerations were playing into the end of Jimmy Carter’s life during the symposium on Tuesday.

“The caregiving associated with mental health and mental illness is so crucial and so fundamental to the work that we all do in this room and to her legacy that it is remarkable and important, and we’ve all experienced it very first hand over the last year so we give thanks for that as well,” he said at the event, according to Georgia Recorder.