Jimmy Carter in hospice care is a gut punch

I was hit with a sharp sadness when I learned that former President Jimmy Carter would be receiving hospice care at home, in what appears to be the final round of what had been one heck of a championship fight. I have had elderly family members and friends who passed after such a long life. And though you feel sad, you are buoyed by the knowledge that the person lived such a long and, hopefully, wonderful life.

I just had the feeling that Jimmy Carter would go on forever because there is much work to be done, and he is the right person to get it done, age be damned.

There will be those who hang on to falsehood that Carter was a bad president. There are no bad presidents. There are effective presidents and ineffective presidents. There are good people who occupy the White House and there are bad people.

President Trump may have been somewhat effective — which is open to speculation — in some of the things he did or tried to accomplish. But he was, and remains, a bad person. Same could be said for Woodrow Wilson, an avowed racist. You may also have an ineffective president who was also a bad person.

On the flip side, you may have a president who is the salt of the earth and equally effective. Abraham Lincoln rises to the top. Grover Cleveland could be another. I would argue very few men who occupied the White House in our history have been a better, more compassionate person than Jimmy Carter.

The black eye he receives comes from his ineffectiveness over issues that were important to the American people. And even with that, his peace initiative that took Israel and Egypt off the battlefield and put them onto the road to peace still stands, some 45 years later. That is remarkable.

The Annapolis graduate, submariner, and successful businessman did not let a re-election loss in 1980 slow him down.

With his wife, his best friend, by his side, he embarked on a life of helping others, of teaching Sunday school, of attending his beloved Atlanta Braves baseball games. In 2002, while the winds of war hung in the air regarding Iraq (and contrived evidence), Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for undertaking peace negotiations, working for human rights, and aiming for social welfare.

Carter, politics aside perhaps ironically, is the type of person we should demand from our elected officials. As he stated in 2019, he was “at ease with death.” The Lord had other plans. Now it appears the Lord is calling him.

I am sad.