Jo Parry

"There is no room for laziness in this house..." My grandfather's voice echoed from the tall, vaulted ceiling of his Maine farmhouse. My brother and I had been working - or to be more precise - doing our best not to be working - on moving some hay bales out of the barn. Papa was not happy. "If you can't do it, just say you can't do it. But don't you tell me you'll do something and then stand around waiting for the task to magically complete itself." I put my all-too-clean hands behind my back and fidgeted with the waistband of my shorts. My brother, who had a disarming knack for looking like he didn't care when he was being scolded, stood nodding, a mischievious grin spreading between his flushed cheeks.

"I'm sorry, Papa," I said, "Give us a chance to finish?"

"You get one more chance. And if you can finish it in the next thirty minutes, we'll go to Folger's for somethin' special..." He winked at me, then continued, "Now go-on - get to it."

My brother dragged his feet as we headed back toward the barn. "Come on Eric, move it," I said, "I will not let you upset him anymore. Let's just get this done."

It took us twenty minutes to move the last twenty five bales. There were forty two in total. The first seventeen had taken us over an hour to move. Probably because we'd mostly spent that hour doddling with the goats and old Marist the pony and talking about the creatures that we were convinced lived in the woods outside the farm's property line.

Apparently, Papa knew how to motivate us. Or me, I should say. My brother would argue, but I'm fairly certain I moved more than half of those bales on my own. And they were heavy.

After we were done, Papa loaded us in the back of his pick-up (how redneck of us) and drove us down to Folger's Variety Store. We were each rewarded with a frozen lemonade and a pretzel stick. Papa watched as I tested. Back then, it took over a minute to get a result. I remember that day, being somewhere around 40 mg/dl - since we didn't have a glucose monitor, we simply matched the colors on the strip to the colors on the bottle (how even more redneck of us). I remember my grandfather's worried face, watching impatiently as I tried to enjoy my reward. And then I remember his saying, looking as if he'd committed a crime, "I'm sorry I called you lazy, Coley."

"But I was being lazy," I replied, his hand now brushing dirt and hay from my hair.

As I've gone through my life since my grandfather left us, I often remember that day and days like it.

I wonder why he apologized for calling me lazy. Could it be he thought the burden of this disease alone, the responsibility of it, exempted me from being lazy? Then I wonder if I've been cut breaks because I have diabetes - and I desperately hope that's not the case.

And I wonder how Papa would react if he knew that I get lazy about the day to day with this thing. That sometimes, I just can't take another moment of "have to" and so I excuse myself - hanging out with the dangerous, loafing, slacker part of me. I don't have to wonder, really.

Because his voice still echoes - from the high, vaulted ceiling of my memory "There is no room for laziness in this house."

Damn straight.