2023年5月24日
资料照片：前总统吉米·卡特与夫人在家中庆祝结婚75周年纪念日。(2021年7月10日)
前总统吉米·卡特(Jimmy Carter)的孙子说，卡特在家中接受临终关怀三个月后精神依然很好，他接受家人的探望，听取公众对他的遗产的讨论，并且还在了解卡特中心在世界各地的人道主义工作的最新情况。他甚至经常享用冰淇淋。
杰森·卡特(Jason Carter)谈到现年分别98岁和95岁的吉米·卡特和罗莎琳·卡特(Rosalynn Carter)时说：“他们现在只是与家人见面，但他们正在以最好的方式进行这些会面：他们两个一起在家里。”
杰森·卡特周二(5月23日)在一次简短的采访中说：“他们已经在一起70多年了。他们也知道他们失去了掌控。他们的信念在这一刻真正扎根。这样就已经很好了。”
最长寿的美国总统吉米·卡特在2月宣布，在经历了一系列短暂的住院治疗后，他将放弃进一步的医疗干预，并在自己1962年首次当选为州参议员曾经于普莱恩斯居住的同一栋朴素的单层小屋中度过余生。他没有透露任何疾病相关的信息。
临终关怀的声明引发了源源不断的致敬，媒体也进一步关注他1977-1981年的总统任期以及这对夫妇1982年共同创立卡特中心以来所做的全球人道主义工作。
杰森·卡特(Jason Carter)周二在致敬他祖父的活动上发表讲话后说：“这是过去几个月以来的好事之一。他当然会看到这么多人的心意，这肯定让他感到欣慰。”
这位前总统还获得了卡特中心根除麦地那龙线虫计划的最新消息，该计划于1980年代中期启动，当时数百万人受到不洁饮用水传播的寄生虫的影响。去年，全球只有不到30个病例。
他的孙子说，在状况良好的时候，他还继续享用他喜欢的花生酱冰淇淋，很符合他作为花生农的政治形象。
曾担任卡特的联合国大使的安德鲁·杨(Andrew Young)告诉美联社，他也在“几周前”拜访了卡特一家，并且“很高兴我们可以开怀大笑和开玩笑”。
星期二，扬、杰森·卡特与其他朋友以及卡特总统的仰慕者一起在亚特兰大东北部诺克罗斯郊区的吉米·卡特大道上为这位前总统举行了庆祝活动。杨说，在美国种族和民族最多样化的郊区之一，庆祝活动所在的地点反映了这位追求和平、解决冲突和种族平等的前总统的更广泛遗产。
当格威内特县这条近16公里的高速公路于1976年(卡特当选总统的那一年)重新命名时，亚特兰大大都市边缘的小镇和市郊社区才刚刚开始繁荣。现在，仅格威内特就有大约100万人口，吉米·卡特大道正在蓬勃发展，许多黑人业主、移民或第一代美国人在这里做生意。
杨是民权运动期间马丁·路德·金的高级助手，他说卡特在吉姆·克劳(Jim Crow)种族隔离时代作为乔治亚州南部的一名白人政治家进入政坛，但他证明了自己的价值观是不同的。
杨说，作为州长和总统，卡特相信“全世界可以来到佐治亚州，向每个人展示如何共同生活。”
91岁的杨说，现在，佐治亚州“看起来就像全世界。”
妮可·洛夫·亨德里克森(Nicole Love Hendrickson)于2020年当选为格威内特县委员会的第一位黑人主席，她称赞卡特是“一个非常尊重他人的人”。
提到卡特的连任失败，扬表示，他个人很高兴看到历史学家和其他人在重新评估卡特的总统任期时发掘了一些成功的故事——放弃对巴拿马运河的控制，制定国家能源战略，比任何一位美国总统都更多地参与非洲事务。这些成就要么在当时不受欢迎，要么因卡特未能在1980年大选前遏制通货膨胀、缓解能源危机或释放在伊朗的美国人质而黯然失色。
杨说：“我告诉他，‘你知道，他们花了50多年的时间才能欣赏(亚伯拉罕·)林肯总统。可能也需要这么长时间才能欣赏你。”
杨说：“没有人想着巴拿马运河。没有人会想着让埃及和以色列和平共处。我的意思是，我在想着尝试在非洲做点什么，但华盛顿没有其他人在想，而他做到了。他对所有事情都有想法。”
不过，杰森·卡特周二向他祖父母的仰慕者发表讲话时说他反对将他们视为国际名人。
他说：“他们就像你们所有人的祖父母一样——我的意思是，如果你们的祖父母都是来自乔治亚州南部的农村人的话。如果你今天去那里，他们的水槽旁边有一个小架子，用来晾干食品保鲜袋。”
杰森·卡特说，最令人印象深刻的是，这样的聚会发生在他的祖父还健在的时候。
他告诉与会者：“当他进入临终关怀时，我们当时确实认为他将不久于人世。现在，我只想告诉你们，他将在10月迎来99岁生日。”
（本文依据了美联社的报道。）
Jimmy Carter, 3 months into hospice, is aware of tributes, enjoying ice cream
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/jimmy-carter-3-months-hospice-aware-tributes-enjoying-99548692
Jimmy Carter's grandson says the former president remains in good spirits three months after entering end-of-life care at home
“They’re just meeting with family right now, but they’re doing it in the best possible way: the two of them together at home,” Jason Carter said of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, now 98 and 95 years old.
“They’ve been together 70-plus years. They also know that they’re not in charge,” the younger Carter said Tuesday in a brief interview. “Their faith is really grounding in this moment. In that way, it’s as good as it can be.”
The longest-lived U.S. president, Jimmy Carter announced in February that after a series of brief hospital stays, he would forgo further medical intervention and spend the remainder of his life in the same modest, one-story house in Plains where they lived when he was first elected to the state Senate in 1962. No illness was disclosed.
The hospice care announcement prompted ongoing tributes and media attention on his 1977-81 presidency and the global humanitarian work the couple has done since co-founding The Carter Center in 1982.
“That’s been one of the blessings of the last couple of months,” Jason Carter said after speaking Tuesday at an event honoring his grandfather. “He is certainly getting to see the outpouring and it’s been gratifying to him for sure.”
The former president also gets updates on The Carter Center's Guinea worm eradication program, launched in the mid-1980s when millions of people suffered from the parasite spread by unclean drinking water. Last year, there were fewer than two dozen cases worldwide.
And in less serious moments, he also continues to enjoy peanut butter ice cream, his preferred flavor, in keeping with his political brand as a peanut farmer, his grandson said.
Andrew Young, who served as Carter's U.N. Ambassador, told the AP that he too visited the Carters “a few weeks back” and was “very pleased we could laugh and joke about old times.”
Young and Jason Carter joined other friends and admirers Tuesday at a celebration of the former president along Jimmy Carter Boulevard in suburban Norcross, just northeast of Atlanta. Young said the setting — in one of the most racially and ethnically diverse suburban swaths in America — reflected the former president’s broader legacy as someone who pursued peace, conflict resolution and racial equity.
When the almost 10-mile stretch of highway in Gwinnett County was renamed in 1976 — the year he was elected president — the small towns and bedroom communities on the edge of metropolitan Atlanta were only beginning to boom. Now, Gwinnett alone has a population of about 1 million people, and Jimmy Carter Boulevard is thriving, with many businesses owned by Black proprietors, immigrants or first-generation Americans.
Young, a top aide to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement, said Carter began as a white politician from south Georgia in the days of Jim Crow segregation, but he proved his values were different.
As governor and president, Carter believed “that the world can come to Georgia and show everybody how to live together,” Young said.
Now, Georgia “looks like the whole world,” said Young, 91.
Nicole Love Hendrickson, elected in 2020 as the first Black chair of the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners, praised Carter as “a man with an exceptional regard for the humanity of others.”
Alluding to Carter’s landslide re-election defeat, Young said he has personally relished seeing historians and others finding success stories as they reassess Carter’s presidency — ceding control of the Panama Canal, developing a national energy strategy, engaging more in Africa than any U.S. president had. Such achievements were either unpopular at the time or overshadowed by Carter’s inability to corral inflation, tame energy crises or free the American hostages in Iran before the 1980 election.
“I told him, ‘you know, it took them over 50 years to appreciate President Lincoln. It may take that long to appreciate you,’" Young said.
"Nobody was thinking about the Panama Canal. Nobody would have thought about bringing Egypt and Israel together. I mean, I was thinking about trying to do something in Africa, but nobody else in Washington was, and he did. He’s always had an idea about everything.”
Still, when Jason Carter addressed his grandparents’ admirers Tuesday, he argued against thinking about them like global celebrities.
“They’re just like all of y’all’s grandparents — I mean, to the extent y’all’s grandparents are rednecks from south Georgia,” he said to laughter. “If you go down there even today, next to their sink they have a little rack where they dry Ziplock bags.”
Most remarkable, Jason Carter said, is the fact such a gathering occurred with his grandfather still living.
“We did think that when he went into hospice it was very close to the end,” he told attendees. “Now, I’m just going to tell you, he’s going to be 99 in October.”
