It's a slow start to the morning. Kim Hettich sits at the kitchen table, dumps out a handful of pills and starts counting. Her hair's still wet from a shower, and she sips an energy drink.

She separates the blue, white, cream and orange pills into the days of the month. When her husband, Gary, comes into the kitchen she accidentally hands him her pills. She's about to take his pills with a swallow of banana when he gently point out her mistake.

"Really?" she asks, studying them for a second. "Oh yeah, you're right."

Taking their medicine together is one of the many ways the Hettichs say they're a team.

"We do everything together," Kim says, proudly.

Gary and Kim celebrated their one-year anniversary this month. And like many new couples, it was a year of combining schedules and furniture, families and food, figuring out who takes the garbage out and who pays the bills, and discovering the more intimate aspects of living together - what it's like to wait up late for each other after work, and to wake up together in the same bed every morning.

But Gary and Kim are unlike many other couples. Gary, 40, has Down syndrome, and Kim, 46, has a developmental disability.

With the support of friends and family, the couple says they are striving for what every couple is - their own happily ever after.

Their relationship shows that families of children with Down syndrome now have so much to look forward to, said Gary's mother, Linda Hettich.

"When he was born, they told us to put him in an institution," she said. "We had to go to the school board just to get him in school."

Gary's father, Dennis, remembers the struggles well.

"We had to fight for everything we got," he said.

Routines of life

Thursday is grocery shopping day and Gary and Kim walk one block to Wal-Mart from their La Crosse Street apartment to stock up on food.

Beforehand, they make a list of what they need: bacon, milk, vitamin water and chicken. A Black Hills Workshop coordinator usually accompanies them, encouraging them to make healthy choices and to get the best price.

"One time we went overboard," Gary says, his voice thick and heavy, a common characteristic of Down syndrome. "We had to bring some back."

A routine is what the couple depends on, says Gary's mom.

"Saturday is laundry day," she said, for example. "And if you try to get them to do it on Monday, it won't happen. The only time they fluctuate from their routine is if you tell them there's something coming up."

The couple first met when they were both residents at the apartment complex they live at now. They dated for two years before marrying at her parents' Hermosa home in a cowboy-princess themed ceremony officiated by a local minister, Gary grinning in a cowboy hat and Kim's hair in tendrils.

"It was always a dream," Linda said. "They were meant for each other, and it was meant to be."

The moment she met Gary, Kim was convinced he was the one, said her mother, Letta Flowers.

"She saw him sitting on the step and that's it," Letta said. "She chased him from that moment on. She fell in love with him the minute she saw him."

And on the other end, there was never a doubt in Gary's mind that he couldn't get married because of Down syndrome, said Black Hills Workshop coordinator Kari Thompson.

"No one was going to tell him he couldn't do it," she said.

It's right in line with the way he thinks about his life, she said. He doesn't like to be categorized, or treated special, Thompson said.

"To Gary, there's nothing he can't do," she said.

Kim's parents raised her with the same set of beliefs. They supported the relationship as well.

"We told her, 'You have some disabilities like the rest of us; you can live in society like the rest of us and do what you want,'" Letta said. "It would be harder to keep them apart than let them be together. They're very good for each other; what one lacks, the other has."

Family support

Both sides of the family stop by often and invite the couple over for dinner, checking on them to make sure they don't have questions or need help. But Gary and Kim say they are best when they are together - cashing checks at the bank, making the bed, buying extra chicken thighs in the grocery store so they can freeze some.

Individuals with Down syndrome function at different cognitive, social and physical levels. Gary recognizes and understands many of the concepts and social situations other adults his age do - he apologizes when he almost walks away with a banker's pen, shakes his head in embarrassment when he backs the shopping cart over his toe and he balks at Kim when she interrupts him.

He isn't afraid to let Kim know he loves her.

"She is fun to do things with," he said, in their apartment, which was decorated and painted in corals, creams and Christian verses with the help of Kim's aunt. "I'm glad she's part of my life."

Kim feels the same.

"I wouldn't find anyone like Gary," she said. "We have good times and bad. You've got to have love in everything."

Gary and Kim don't have a car, but are working on getting drivers licenses. Until then, they catch the bus for afternoon and evening shifts to work, him on the janitorial crew at Ellsworth Air Force Base and her at the Federal Building in town. They also receive financial assistance from the federal government.

And the couple likes to travel. With assistance, they visited Niagara Falls and New York City for their honeymoon. They went on a rafting trip earlier this summer and Gary is in California watching a NASCAR race this weekend.

Gary and Kim have talked about starting a family, but Kim is not physically able to have children. Letta says she reminds Kim of what it would be like to try and care for a baby when sometimes it's difficult to care for herself.

Linda said they talked about the issue of family planning with Gary when he moved out, but it has never been an issue with Gary and Kim because of where they're at in life and Kim's physical limits.

"At this stage and age, it's never been an issue," she said.

Some of Letta's nieces have babies and Gary and Kim hold and play with them.

"And then that's enough," Letta said, laughing. "They can have access to all the babies they want … but there are no plans for kids."

The couple is proof that anything is possible, Linda said.

"It's important for other parents to know there's so much they can do," she said. "We're very proud of them both."

Gary started talking about wanting to move out of his parents' house in his teens, but waited until he was 27.

"If we had to do it again, it would have been done sooner," Linda said. "He really grew socially and with making decisions after he was out on his own."

Her advice to other parents is the same advice one of their doctors told them when Gary was little.

"Expect anything," Linda said. "Don't make limitations. If you expect something you'll get something."

Contact Kayla Gahagan at 394-8410 or Kayla.gahagan@rapidcityjournal.com.