Its another December, another year. The Fam and I made our annual trip to the Graves today. 

First we visited Grandpa, my Dad's Dad. I never met him, neither did mom. But Dad always tells us that Grandpa would've loved us. 

We cleaned up his grave site and his Army plaque and put down a grave blanket, and our "Grandpa" sign:

Dad also decided that this year we would search for his Grandpa, so we would be looking at my Great Grandpa. We found him quite easily actually. But it wasn'texactly hard considering we were looking for a German last name in the midst of thousands of Italian ones. We found Great Grandpa and Grandma :') they were by the forest, on the sunny side of the hill. I noticed that they had messed up the tombstone and had to fix it because where it said the year Great Grandpa died, which should be "1976", they accidently started putting my Great Grandma's death date there so it has a "64" filled in and a "76" carved over top of it. 

On our way out of that cemetery we were looking for any other realitives we might have their, so I saw "William J." and immediately shouted it out because my dad, his dad, and his grandpa were all "William L. Jennsch" my dadimmediately put his foot on the brake. then I saw that "William J." was the man's first name and middle intial. His last name was Penachio. lol

Our last stop was Poppop's grave. Poppop was the only one out of these four that I knew. Its also the most emotional for me because I'm still not over it. For years I blamed God for taking my Poppop away from me, I was only 9 or 10 when it happened because I was in 4th grade. I hadn't seen Poppop or Grandma in about a week and that weekend they had gone, with my older sister, to see Poppop's brother, my Great Uncle George. They were coming home on the parkway, my sister was driving, Poppop was in the passengers seat, Gram was in the backseat knitting. A tire from acar going the opposite direction bounced over the median[that cement block in the middle] and hit my Poppop's side of the windshield. It was raining, I was in Super Foodtown with my mom. I was standing on a brown square [because I was trying not to step on the white ones I made a game out of going food shopping] in the steak suce isle the song playing was "Live Like You Were Dying" by Tim McGraw. We got in the car and were on our way home when dad called, all he saidwas "Get home now" so mom and I started jumping to conclusions "Dad was having a heart attack" "dad hurt himself" "dad did this" "dad did that". We got home and he told me to go to the basement with Wendy and stay there. Of course, being me and being curious, I came upstairs and got yelled at and sent back down stairs. Wendy and I sat there and Dad came down a little while after, the first thing he said was "Girls I have some news" but before he said anything more I said "Poppops dead. Isn't he?" I don't know how I knew but I did. 

A week later, I went to Gram and Poppop's house and walked in the door. I was happy as hell that morning and I walked in the door announcing "Grandma! Poppop! I'm here!" right before bursting into tears because I had forgotten Poppop wasn't there. My sister had to go to therapy for two years because she thought the accident was her fault because she had been driving. Wendy didn't understand for a while that we wouldn't see Poppop anymore and it killed me. 

Poppop died April 2, 2005. The same day as the Pope. I no longer do anything on April Fools Day. April 2nd is a difficult day for me. Last year I wenton a trip with my German class to see the Holocaust museum on Poppop's death anniversary. I was fine for the most part. Until I saw a picture of a group of starved Jewish children. I burst into tears. 

Poppop was cremated. And we aren't sure if he was actually born in 1917 or not. Poppop had three birth certificates. And he was adopted. But he looks so much like his adopted father that we think he was the son of his Aunt. But his Aunt had him out of wedlock so in order to save face, her brother took her son. But thats just a family theory. The only one who knew the truth was my Great Great Aunt Clara and apparently she took it to the Grave.  

I used to be terrified of visiting Grandpa's grave. Mainly because I had watched "Night of the Living Dead" when I was 5 and I thought the cemeteries looked similar and I thought a zombie would come after us. I'm totally fine with that now. Mom goes "Are you no longer scared of the zombies?" I was like "Nah! Bing it on zmobies!" lol

I yelled at Wendy today for not being respectful to the dad. She kept stepping on them. Not literally, but instead of walking inbetween tombstones, she walked over the grass where the caskets would be buried. I kept telling her to "Stop steppng on people!" and she said "I don't care!" so dad said "Fine, when a hand reaches up and grabs you, its your fault. Startbeing respectful of the dead." that set her straight. 

My friend called me while we were at Great Grandpa and Grandma's grave and I asked me what I was doing and if I wanted to hang out. I told her I was visiting graves with the fam today. Dad laughed and said "Ye. Not anybody we know, we just like visiting random graves." 

"Sunday Bloody Sunday" by U2 was playing in the car today, I found it kind of ironic. Then I decided I wanted to do a cover of the song with a hard core band. I had the perfect idea for a music video:

A band playing the music on top of a Church. Amps, making the music louder. Zombies making their way towards the Church and the noise. As the zombies approach, theband flashes in and out switching, people with snipers and shot guns in their place, the people flashingback and forth between the band being on the roof and the group of gunmen being on the roof.

Specifically thinking for the music, I'm thinking of the Pillar cover of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" 

I like the idea :)