Jimmy Carter brought up death – particularly his own – in the final Sunday school class he taught at Maranatha Baptist Church. It was November 2019. He had recently fallen and fractured his pelvis, a setback that followed a series of illnesses and injuries that reminded everyone around him – and himself, apparently – that despite his mental acuity and physical vitality 95 years old would not live forever.

Mr. Carter’s death on Sunday at the age of 100 has spurred consideration of a far-reaching legacy: the successes and failures of his presidency; his work to eradicate disease and promote free and fair elections; his commitment to nonprofit organizations such as Habitat for Humanity.

Here’s something else he left behind: In a culture where death as a subject is often taboo and surrounded by an aura of fear, over the years – through writing, public commentary and Sunday school lessons – he has created a collection of Observations brought together that point to an open, clear, evolving exploration of the ending.

He wrote about death in books – and he wrote more books than any other American president. He discussed it in speeches and in correspondence with friends.

These observations were a product of his Christian faith. His perspective also grew from experience, a fluid approach to death that came from the fact that many of his closest family members, including all of his younger siblings, died before him.

His views were also shaped by his own increasing age. He described the feeling of the inevitable looming over him and the health problems that had accumulated, including cancer that had spread to his brain.

At Sunday School this morning in 2019, he said he didn’t think he would survive long after his cancer diagnosis in 2015. “I naturally assumed that I would die very quickly,” he told the packed church. He lived another nine years.

Mr. Carter recalled the worries he had as a young person, awakened by learning in church about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ and by the pastor’s sermons about how “all believers,” as he put it, ” would one day enjoy a similar resurrection.”

“As I grew older,” Mr. Carter wrote, “I began to wonder whether this might be true.”

As a boy, he feared that even a hint of doubt could lead him to a different fate and separate him from his family, especially his parents, for an eternity. “These two people were the core of my existence,” he wrote, “and I couldn’t bear the thought that I wouldn’t be with them forever.”

As Mr. Carter matured, his faith strengthened and shaped his approach to life – and death.

He considered himself a born-again Christian. In a 2012 interview with an influential evangelical theologian, Mr. Carter said his goal had been to “model my life and my own fallible human behaviors on the life of Jesus.”

“Belief in something,” he wrote in several books, “is not an incentive to rest, but to action.”

In 2015, Mr. Carter said he felt uneasy while overseeing elections in Guyana. When he returned to Georgia, doctors discovered a small tumor mass in his liver that turned out to be malignant.

After the mass was removed, doctors discovered the cancer had spread to his brain.

The prognosis was grim, especially considering his age at the time was 90. But he began aggressive treatment for his metastatic melanoma, which included a drug that had only been approved months before he began treatment.

Four months later, he announced in Sunday school that scans showed he was free of the disease.

Mr. Carter’s understanding of mortality was anything but abstract.

His father, brother and two sisters died of pancreatic cancer. His mother, Lillian Carter, died of breast cancer. She was 85 when she died, but Mr. Carter noted that the others had died at relatively young ages – his father, James Carter Sr., was 59; his sister Gloria was 64; his sister Ruth was 54; and his brother Billy was 51.

His grandson Jeremy died of a heart attack in 2015 at the age of 28.

Mr. Carter recounted how his brother and mother maintained their sense of humor even when they were suffering. He also admired the tireless faith of his sister Ruth, an evangelist and spiritual healer.

In his final years, Mr. Carter became a source of inspiration to many – and frustration and concern to those closest to him – because he doggedly continued his work despite his illness and age.

In 2019, he was left bruised and bandaged with a black eye after a fall at home, but within hours of the fall he was in Nashville helping install porches on homes built by Habitat for Humanity. A few weeks later, after he fractured his pelvis in another fall, family members and aides insisted that he cancel his Sunday school classes. He sat down in front of the congregation and did it anyway.

That resilience was on display again after the Carter Center announced in February 2023 that he had entered hospice care. Many believed that the end was quickly approaching. But once again, Mr. Carter defied others’ expectations. In July of the same year, he celebrated another anniversary with his wife Rosalynn and his 99th birthday in October.

When Ms. Carter died in November 2023 at the age of 96, Mr. Carter attended her funeral, a reflection of his frailty as well as the strength of his devotion to his wife and his determination to be there for her.

Aging is difficult. This is true even for a former president who has access to the best medical care and constant support from staff.

Well into his 90s, Mr. Carter continued to travel the world, teaching, writing and pursuing his hobbies, including bird watching. But at some point time caught up with him. The corona pandemic has taken even more toll on him. He spent his final years with Mrs. Carter in the same modest house where he had lived for decades.

His death caused deep sadness in Plains, the small Georgia town where Mr. Carter’s home was just off the main street. But there was a hint of another feeling, not exactly relief, but something similar – the feeling that he had earned his rest after such a long, productive, and varied life.

His death left a void in the world, in his community, in his family, so many who knew him, and many others who were connected to him only by his legacy. Nevertheless, many in Plains also believed that his death was not an end but a transition to the eternal life that he remembered in the pastor’s memory as he preached.

He believed that too.