FRANKLIN, Va. — In a downtown area with just one stoplight, you can bet the shops up and down Main Street are local and family-owned.
“I see people pull up, I think, ’Oh maybe they’re coming in,'" said Kaden Dickerson, looking out the store window in Franklin.
Dickerson, 22, does what he can to help at a new family business there: Ginger's Creative Woodworks LLC.
“Obviously, no kid wants to come to mom’s work every single day," said his mom, Ginger Powell. She recently opened up the brick-and-mortar shop for her custom woodworking creations.
It's an operation that's as "family" as family business gets. On any given day, you'll find Ginger and Kaden together in the newly opened storefront as he handles the digital register.
“I said ‘Why don’t you man the register? We can make the iPad move around, roll around the store,'" Powell said.
It sounded good to him.
“I got this joke now where: I’m glad I don’t walk, because the people that do walk complain about it," Dickerson laughed.
Doctors diagnosed Dickerson with Duchenne muscular dystrophy at three years old. It's a degenerative disease that gets worse over time, and so far, is without a cure.
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine, Duchenne muscular dystrophy "mostly affects boys and occurs in one in 3,500 to 5,000 newborns."
Kaden stopped walking around 2010.
“My 'normal' is everyone doing everything for me," he said.
“His arms are getting weaker. Little things like that his arms are basically the last thing that work for him," Powell said.
But working at the store is giving him a new routine.
“Not much I can help her with at home, but here I can help," Dickerson said.
Powell knows to cherish the family moments like this, the mother and son bond that many take for granted.
“You can’t really put a time stamp on this [muscular dystrophy]," Powell said.
Kaden Dickerson's older brother, Dylan, passed last year after living with the same disease for two decades. Ginger said it came as a shock, as they were expecting more time with her older son.
That’s why the small moments that may be normal to us mean just a little more on Main Street in Franklin.
“You can't think what’s going to happen in 5-10 years, then you’re just wasting away the time you have with him now," Powell said.