Former President Jimmy Carter attends the memorial service for his wife, former first lady Rosalynn Carter, at Glenn Memorial Church in Atlanta, Nov. 28, 2023. (Erin Schaff/The New York Times) ATLANTA — His face was pale and gaunt, his legs were wrapped in a blanket, and his eyes never seemed to make contact with the family members huddled around him. But on Tuesday, Jimmy Carter was there, in the front row of a church in Atlanta, just a few feet from the coffin holding Rosalynn Carter , his wife of 77 years. Carter, 99, was some 164 miles from his home in Plains, Georgia, where he had been in hospice care since February. He was brought into the church in a wheelchair, as the crowd of mourners at the memorial service looked on, many of them catching their first glimpse of him in nine months.