Memphis — Last November Jimmy Carter spent a day here building a house, then vowed he'd be back to work on something even bigger.
Now, in a somewhat remarkable turn of events, he’s made good on that promise.
It's not the sight of the nearly 92-year-old former president hammering away in the oppressive Delta heat that's so startling. This is Habitat for Humanity's 33rd Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Project after all, meaning America's most famous pair of married do-it-yourselfers are well into their fourth decade of building houses for a week each year all over the world.
Rather, it’s the way Carter’s all but pounded his dire cancer diagnosis into submission that’s surprised so many people. That includes the former president himself. In a sometimes rollicking interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution conducted at the end of his second long day of work here Tuesday, Carter spoke about everything from the newfound responsibility of being the “face” of cancer to the number of games he might attend next season when his beloved Atlanta Braves start playing in Cobb County.
Carter revealed his serious cancer diagnosis just over one year ago. He told the AJC he found a new lease on life just when he thought his days were seriously numbered.
“When I thought I wasn’t going to live but just a couple more weeks, I was still very grateful for the life I’d already had,” said Carter, a pair of what he called “Habitat socks” (bright yellow hammers scattered all over a dark background) peeking out from beneath his faded, dusty blue jeans.
“I was thankful, primarily, and not afraid of death. But I was very grateful, obviously, to be given you might say a second chance.”
Last August Carter revealed that the melanoma cancer originally found in his liver had spread to his brain. The world responded with prayers. Standing-room-only crowds packing his weekly Sunday school classes in Plains — and later rejoiced right along with him at the news that he was in remission.
Ten days ago, some friends in Plains surprised him with a cake to mark the one-year anniversary of the day he announced he was sick.
“He was surprised. I think he’d forgotten about (the significance of the date),” Jill Stuckey said of the moment when the cheesecake topped with cherries and a big chocolate number “1” was brought into her dining room. “He’s not sitting around thinking about the past and instead is looking forward to the good things he can still do.”
Maybe so. But the very next morning, Carter went into Sunday school and talked about the experience his year with cancer, from initially thinking he might only a few months to live to deciding to fight with a combination of radiation therapy and a groundbreaking new form of immunotherapy treatment.
Jan Williams, another close friend who deftly handles the crowds at Maranatha Baptist Church when Carter teaches Sunday school recalls that talk: “He threw in that he knew his time might be limited, so he should use it for the best.”
Indeed, this is not quite the same Jimmy Carter of a year ago. As he promised at last August's extraordinary press conference where he discussed his diagnosis at length, he's handed over the chairmanship of the Carter Center board of trustees to his grandson, Jason, and significantly cut back on his grueling international travel schedule. And he's had to adjust to the added responsibility of becoming a symbol both of hope and help to other cancer patients, especially since it came out in March that his doctors were halting his treatment for now because it had proven so successful.
“I don’t feel a burden, like a responsibility would be,” said Carter, who gets “lots” of letters from people with cancer, a few of whom have even started showing up at Maranatha when he’s teaching Sunday school. “But it’s gratifying for me to know that additional people have hope and expectations for the future.”
He also knows he's one of the lucky ones. The type of immunotherapy treatment that saved his life is still quite expensive and only works for about forty percent of patients with his type of melanoma, Carter said experts had concluded.
“When I got it, it was strictly experimental and they didn’t have any idea if it would work or not,” said Carter. “I don’t have any doubt that the cost will come down some.”
There were lighter moments during the AJC interview as well, notably related to his beloved Atlanta Braves. The location of the Carter Center, where he and his wife keep an efficiency apartment, has allowed for quick trips to Turner Field — a situation the Braves' No. 1 fan conceded can't help but change with the team's move to Cobb.
“I believe (coming) from Plains, we can hit 285 and go around” the rush hour traffic, Carter said, his eyes starting to twinkle. “When we’re at the Carter Center, obviously it’s going to take longer and we might have more reason to have a police escort!”
As befits a man given a second chance, he's enjoying a good joke. He's also willing to admit to the occasional mistake, as when he recently told Stuckey that he probably shouldn't have taught back-to-back Sunday school classes on the weekend after he started radiation treatment last August.
“I was kind of surprised when he said, ‘I shouldn’t have done that,’” Stuckey said. “He admitted the other day he hadn’t been physically able to do it.”
Five long days building houses for Habitat for Humanity is another story entirely, however. Carter’s unwavering commitment to doing backbreaking, hands-on work for the organization was best epitomized at Sunday’s opening ceremony held at Memphis’s historic Peabody Hotel. First he heaped thanks and praise on a ballroom full of excited volunteers as well as many of the people whose homes they’d be helping to build this week. Then he delivered the punchline with a deadly serious message underneath:
“We’re going to have a photograph made with every work crew on the project before we leave,” Carter grinned as Rosalynn stood next to him at the dais. “S-o-o, the rest of the week, do not come to our house (work site) to try to get pictures, or to try to get autographs. Because if you do, you won’t be working and you’ll be keeping me from working!”
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