Jimmy Carter told a crowded church in Georgia that he is at complete peace with death after struggling with cancer and suffering two recent falls.
“I assumed, naturally, that I was going to die very quickly,” the former president told the congregation Sunday. “I obviously prayed about it. I didn’t ask God to let me live, but I asked God to give me a proper attitude toward death. And I found that I was absolutely and completely at ease with death.”
Carter, 95, was hospitalized last month after he fell and fractured his pelvis, but he said he had already come to grips with dying back in 2015.
“It didn’t really matter to me whether I died or lived. Except I was going to miss my family and miss the work at the Carter Center and miss teaching your Sunday school service sometimes and so forth. All those delightful things,” he said.
The 39th president returned to teaching Sunday school just two weeks after his pelvic fracture. He also fell earlier in the month and gashed his forehead, which required 14 stitches to fix.
Carter is the oldest living president and also the oldest president of all time, topping former President George H.W. Bush, who lived to be 94 years old.
