It is a month of endings. In addition to bringing this column to a close, I’ll be retiring after 42 years of ministry among the Quakers. Pope Leo was 69 when he was elected pope, and I’m only 65, but I have something Pope Leo doesn’t: grandchildren, and I want to see them. Our youngest grandchildren, Miles (age 4) and twins Lewis and Emelia (age 1), are moving to Alaska, a development I tried to prevent by telling my son and his wife I had less than a year to live. My son, a physician’s associate, wanted to know what was wrong with me, and I said the first thing that came to mind, smallpox, which he said had been eliminated in 1980 and I said why take the chance, but they’re still moving to Alaska and taking our grandchildren with them.
My wife, ever the optimist, said we could get on an airplane and visit them whenever we wanted, which is easy for her to say since she doesn’t have smallpox. It’s been so long since anyone had smallpox, we’ve forgotten how bad it is — the pustules and rash, which I don’t have yet, but it’s only a matter of time. All my life, I’ve known people who’ve retired and died a month later, and that now appears to be my fate, unless they discover a cure for smallpox in the next month, which I’m not counting on.
The one good thing about dying of smallpox is that I no longer have to fret about ending up in a nursing home and being visited by preachers bent on saving me. Smallpox is mercifully quick: You cash in your chips eight to ten days after the onset of symptoms, which, just to be clear, I don’t have yet, though am expecting them any day. The fever comes first, then headaches, back pain, vomiting, and fatigue, followed by a rash and pustules. It appears I’ve skipped the first four and moved straight to fatigue. I’m tired all the time, which is how I first became aware of my illness. Smallpox causes fatigue. Google it. As it turns out, menopause is the other cause of fatigue, but I’m not a woman, so it must be smallpox. What else could it be?
I told my wife I wanted to die at home, and she agreed to that but told me I couldn’t die on the couch, because it’s brand new and she doesn’t want the pustules oozing all over it. She said I can die in our garage, draped across my motorcycle, which is ironic since she’s been telling me for years I’m going to die on it.
The biggest disappointment in all of this, next to my grandchildren moving 3,700 miles away, is that it appears I’ll expire without using any of my Medicare, despite having contributed to it since I turned 16 and went to work sacking groceries at Johnston’s IGA. I wasn’t lucky enough to get a long, drawn-out disease necessitating multiple surgeries and months in a hospital. No, I had to get a disease that killed me in eight days, when it takes three weeks to get an appointment with my doctor. I’ll be dead 13 days before I finally get in to see him.
I’ll spend my remaining days wisely, complaining about Alaska, checking for pustules, and making people feel bad for doubting me. If I survive, I’ll visit my grandchildren. If I don’t, I’ll have my ashes scattered at the Medicare office, so at long last I might get my money’s worth.
Philip Gulley is a Quaker pastor and author of 22 books, including the Harmony and Hope series, featuring Sam Gardner.
This article is featured in the November/December 2026 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
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