Many respect Jimmy Carter in Georgia Cold

The early morning sky was a pool of ink and the air bitterly cold, at least by the standards of a southerner via Nigeria. Still, Cornelius Ani dragged himself out of bed on Tuesday, bundled up and drove 30 miles from the Atlanta suburbs. He had to.

This was his chance – his only chance – to be in the presence of someone like Jimmy Carter. A President of the United States. Recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. A Georgian. A man of humble roots, he deeply admired. Mr. Ani, 62, expected he would never come across someone like that in his lifetime.

“That combination can only come from someone who is chosen,” said Mr. Ani beamed—suddenly immune to the cold—as he walked away from Mr. Carter’s casket after arriving at the Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta hours before sunrise.

“Give it all, give it all, give it all,” said Mr. Ani, a civil engineer. That was the lesson he took from Jimmy Carter.

The library had been open 24/7 since Saturday night, so anyone who wanted to step up to the casket draped in an American flag could do so — to say a prayer, give a salute, watch the changing of the guard, cry or just stand there and enjoy the immersion in a moment that felt like a piece of history.

Soon after, Mr. Carter’s remains will be carried on to Washington, the next leg of a journey that encompasses the former president’s long and multifaceted life. He would leave Atlanta for the last time. There was no last minute surge before the visit ended at 6. In the last hours, the security officers and the crew of volunteers sometimes outnumbered the visitors.

Some arrived in scrubs and fluorescent vests. John Roberts, 58, donned a shirt, tie and gray sweater. “I feel like it warranted it,” he said. He entered from Marietta in the Atlanta suburbs, parked in a spot where he hoped he wouldn’t get a ticket, and went inside to say a short prayer.

“I pray I live to be 100,” he said. “I pray that I live a life that he lived.”

Kim Jensen, associate director of the Carter Center’s program to combat trachoma, an eye disease that is a leading cause of blindness worldwide, had already been at a special service for the center’s staff. Still she wanted to come again and left her house around 4 in the morning

“I was a little worried that he would be alone,” she said.

As humble as Mr. Carter might have presented himself, he was nevertheless in that rarest category of figures known and respected around the world, that occupied by presidents, popes and monarchs.

Death, it seemed, did not dampen the power of being in his presence. It was quite possible the opposite.

“I just wanted to be a part of history,” said Amber Seabrook Stokes, a chiropractor who woke up around 2:30 a.m. and came from Powder Springs, Ga., about 20 miles away. “My husband looked at me like I was crazy.”

She struck up a conversation with Lailaa Ragins, a stay-at-home mother from Marietta, on the bus ride to the library, and they came out of the visitation together. They bonded over their love for Mr. Carter and the realization that they didn’t live that far apart.

Mrs. Ragins wanted to come before her children woke up. She felt a connection to Mr. Carter because of their shared Christian faith, she said, and because of Habitat for Humanity, the nonprofit organization long associated with Mr. Carter. Her family moved into a Habitat house when she was a child. She recalled her mother having to do her “sweat hours” every Saturday, the in-kind payment required to buy one of the nonprofit’s homes.

She left feeling happy.

“This life is not all there is,” said Mrs. Ragins, 39. “His soul is with God. He is with his wife. His soul is free.”

Mel Selcho, 53, huddled by a heater outside, welcoming people. “There aren’t many men I’d stand in the cold for,” Ms Selcho joked. She could have been one of the volunteers inside. But being “a professional shusher,” as she called it, wasn’t for her. This role suited her better.

“Here to see President Carter?” she asked people walking up.

“President Carter is waiting for you!”

As a girl in Utah, where Mr. Carter was not so popular, she was one of a handful of students in her elementary school who voted for him in a mock election. “He’s always had a special place in my heart,” she said.

When she had her own chance to step forward to pay her respects, she became emotional. “I was very surprised that I cried,” she said.

Others had the same unexpected response. Watery eyes that morning were not caused by blowing wind alone.

“I was there for five to 10 minutes and tears were literally falling down my face,” said LaSonya Burton, another volunteer on the night team, who came from Douglas County, about 25 miles west of Atlanta.

She had never been to the Carter Center before, and now she was directing visitors to sign the guest books.

The binders had been stuffed with messages in a variety of languages ​​and more than a few renditions of Peanuts, including one with a toothy grin and angel wings. A family from Ellenwood, Ga., sat down and filled pages. (A brief excerpt: “Exercising meekness is not weak,” one of them wrote.) Most people just jotted down a few words.

The world will miss you and so will Atlanta.

Thank you for working tirelessly for a cleaner, safer, better and fairer world. I will carry your message. I’m sorry we let you down.

My Aunt Kathryn met you in the 80’s in North Carolina and was giddy as a schoolgirl.

You rule Jimmy

At 5 o’clock the end of the visitation approached. The size of the crowd increased slightly. “One more hour!” Mrs. Selcho shouted.

Joshua Newsome, 24, and Antonio Hatch, 25, in their black puffy winter jackets, rode over on their bikes. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Mr. Hatch, “and a bit of an adventure with the cold, so we got up stupidly early.”

The experience was strong. “It’s a moment of honor and respect,” said Mr. Newsome. But he also admitted that the gravity of the moment and what he would ultimately take from it hadn’t set in yet. “I think I need to wake up a bit,” he said before cycling home in the dark.

Sound produced by Sarah Diamond.