huck

Spent a few wonderful days with one of the greatest women in America, nay, the world: my grandma. With my Grandpa Joe passing away in 1986, she’s made sure to stay active and awesome, retiring from her job at the local bank only a few years ago after three decades, funding projects for people with special needs, visiting nursing homes to show love and attention to those with no one else, presiding over various comissions to help the disadvantaged, and bowling in a league with her girlfriends. There’s more, but I couldn’t keep track of it all. Needless to say, I’m so proud of the woman I could explode.

I arrived just in time to get an early morning tour Ste. Genevieve Industries, a non-profit where my Aunt Annette works along with approximately 70 other adults with special needs. Employees–with varying degrees of disability–are assigned fundamental tasks to perform such as operating machines that bag ice, constructing wooden shipping pallets, or assembling electronic components, receiving a paycheck for their labor just like a regular workplace. It was a life-affirming experience, seeing the fulfilled faces of Annette and her coworkers, their obvious pride in knowing that they are asset to their community, instead of a liability.

Otherwise, we spent the days eating chicken noodle soup and ham sandwiches, gabbing about this and that, catching up and chillaxing, Missouri-style. The weather was clear and breezy, a welcome change from the previous week. The morning that I left, we grabbed breakfast at the Kozy Kitchen, a small café in the little town my grandma calls home, and I asked the waitress to snap a few pictures.