Word Count: 114,008
Summary of Events:
Keeleigh decided she would go visit Adelejda on the last Saturday in October before going downstairs and talking to her mom about the trunk a little bit. Olga was teaching her siblings when Emil and Zygfryd came home injured from their efforts to go get a Christmas tree; she helped tend to their wounds. Keeleigh started off her trip to visit Adelejda by going to Opal to see if she could find Zygfryd and Olga's graves; she first tried the Catholic church's cemetery, and then the town cemetery . . .
Excerpt of the Day:
"Keeleigh wasn't sure how far back she'd have to go to find the graves of Zygfryd and Olga, but she presumed — considering the longevity of the great aunts and uncles she knew of — that if she didn't find them by the time she hit 1999 as the death year she'd not be likely to find them.
There were quite a few joint graves, where the husband and wife shared a tombstone, with one who'd died recently being buried beside the other who'd predeceased them by a few years, much like Aunt Kornelia and Aunt Malwina.
Both of them had bought pairs of plots and gotten combined stones which they'd pre-engraved with their names and birth years, and now had their death years engraved in them, with their having died.
Uncle Igor had done the same thing when Aunt Joan had died, although he'd done a set of identical stones, and his was currently stored in his garage, pre-engraved with his name and birthday.
Keeleigh couldn't imagine what it was like for Aunt Kornelia, Aunt Malwina, or any of the other members of the couples she was seeing here that'd outlived their spouses and gotten a joint stone to go visit the grave of their spouse and see their own name on a stone, awaiting the day when they died.
When she got as old as them she'd probably do like Uncle Igor, buy a plot for herself right away, and a stone, but have it a separate stone, so that she wasn't staring at a seeming predictor of her own death anytime she decided to visit the grave of her husband.
That was a long time from now, though, and thinking of having a dead husband wasn't exactly the sort of thought Keeleigh considered pleasing. She didn't even have a live husband at this point in time, she didn't want to think about having a dead one.
Keeleigh stopped herself suddenly when she noticed the death year on the headstone she was looking at was 1996. She'd gone too far, but she was pretty sure she hadn't seen any Niemcyks or Kamińskis.
Turning around, Keeleigh worked her way back and double-checked, just to be sure, and found that, indeed, she'd found no Niemcyks or Kamińskis. So they weren't here either.
About the only other place they could've been buried was the Baptist cemetery, as it'd been the next-nearest result for cemeteries near Opal.
Keeleigh had to confess that thought surprised her. All her great aunts and uncles that she knew were Catholics, and devotedly so. Was it because they'd decided to become Baptists that Zygfryd, Olga, and Adelejda had been disowned?
Shifting her jaw, Keeleigh wondered, but she knew she'd find out the answers later when she went to visit Adelejda; for now, however, it was time to get back into her car and head for the Baptist cemetery, which was a good fifteen minute drive from here."
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