Former President Jimmy Carter is “coming to the end,” his grandson Jason Carter said Tuesday.

The younger Carter provided the update on his 99-year-old grandfather during the 28th Rosalynn Carter Georgia Mental Health Forum in Atlanta, the first held since the former first lady died in November.

The longest-lived American president, Jimmy Carter has been in hospice care in Plains, Georgia, since February 2023. 

"My grandfather is doing OK," said Jason Carter, who chairs the board at The Carter Center, which hosts the forum. "He has been in hospice, as you know, for some —  almost a year and a half now. And he really is, I think, coming to the end. 

“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,” Jason Carter added.

Jason Carter said he visited the former president a few weeks ago to watch an Atlanta Braves game on television. 

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

“But those moments for him in this last year have reminded us, I think, of another of the really important aspects of my grandmother's legacy, which is that of caregiving,” Jason Smith said, turning the attention back to the forum’s namesake.