Romancing the Moon

Last weekend gave rise to a Super Blood Wolf Moon. A very special moon. A moon at its closest point to the earth. A moon full at mid-winter when it is said that wolves would howl into the night from the snow covered land surrounding Native American villages. A moon eclipsed by the earth, kissed with red. As with so many things in life, there are multiple aspects but it is blood that is most important.



The first Blood Moon that I witnessed preceded Halloween of 2004, a spectacle that I shared with my oldest grandson who was just five and half years old at the time. This was our first “guys’ trip.” We could have just as easily called it our Dinosaur Volcano Blood Moon trip.



We traveled from Colorado Springs that weekend, setting our course south (a direction that brings me much comfort). The first leg of our journey saw us cross the Colorado/New Mexico border by way of Raton Pass then turning east in the direction of Texas.



At the border with Texas, there is Clayton Lake State Park. The park has one of the most extensive dinosaur trackways in North America. What better way to start our trip than walking where dinosaurs walked, by witnessing the fossilized footprints of creatures that now only live best in our imaginations.



My grandson ran me ragged over those grounds. We saw every site of interest. The highlight of which was my grandson and I looking out from a foot bridge over a dry shallow river bed the color and texture of moonscape. It was covered with the rounded prints of thick-skinned herbivores and the three toed prints of the long-toothed creatures that pursued them.



From Clayton Lake Park, we headed back west the way we came making for Capulin Volcano State Park. Capulin is an extinct volcano (my level of courage only extends so far!). Visiting something so ancient, something that helped to define the landscape, define the earth with my young grandson at my side grants a particular perspective on past, present, and future. Our trek was not limited to the rim, but we also followed a trail down into the crater. We walked on rocky ground and among stubborn ragged vegetation aware that at one time this hole in the mountain was bare and gaping and spewing ash and lava into the air and over the land.



Exhausted from miles of travel and long hikes, we made our way back into Colorado for fast food and our hotel in Trinidad. We ate our food and watched tv waiting for nightfall and the lunar eclipse. When the time came, we went out into the cold. Scrub oak and small pinon pine trees were dark twisted silhouettes in the night. Above us the moon shone dully in the sky, a celestial eye, unblinking and bloodshot. My grandson pointed up toward the orb and breathlessly uttered, “Look, Bumpa. The BLOOD. RED. MOON.”



As a post script to this trip and to my grandson’s beautiful innocent enthusiasm, I took one of the many photos from the trip and scanned it into my computer. Ineptly, I did a rough cut and paste of a T-Rex image into a picture of my grandson looking at a Clayton State Park sign. When I showed this composite to him, he looked at me wide-eyed and said, “Bumpa! I didn’t even see that when we were there!”



For me, the moon makes time fluid. Starting from the moon, I flow with ink black waters from one memory, one story to the next. And those stories are not only behind me. As-long-as the moon rises in the sky, the headwaters for those stories are not yet reached, and there are memories upon memories to be made.

House without Elders

"A house without an elderly person is like an orchard without a well."

Arabic proverb

Without an oral tradition, how will we know who we are and where we came from. I let my best chance at building such a history slip away by not being curious enough when my father was alive and before Alzheimer’s assaulted him. In fact, I didn’t get the longing to establish a heritage, to learn about the Handal family line until just a few years ago after more than 50 years of my life had passed.

My start to this journey seemed hopeless. I was armed with so little. I am one of five children – sons and daughters of Frank, grandsons and granddaughters of Nicholas, great grandsons and great granddaughters of Solomon. That’s it, I could go back three generations from us and not even completely.

I did know the two children of my Grandfather Nicholas. They were Frank my father, and Eddie my uncle. It gets very thin beyond that. Nicholas was married to Emilia who was a Handal before marriage from a branch in Honduras. I knew Emilia (called by we children, Nanny) had at least two sisters, Lydia and Anita. Finally, I was reasonably sure that Nicholas had brothers named George and Joe and a sister Mary. Also, I had been told that the Handal family is a large family and that Nicholas immigrated from Bethlehem. I take no small amount of pride at the thought of being part of a family from Bethlehem.

When I started I used Ancestry.com to perform my research and develop a Handal family tree. The first layer was easy enough to fill. I know the birthdays, spouses, and children of myself and my siblings, and I know the names of my first cousins (Eddie’s kids), but no dates etc. The lack of information on Brian, Paul, and Jeanie is due to a rift in the family that occurred around the time my Uncle Eddie was taken far too early by cancer. I do not know the specifics. I do not know our perspectives or theirs. Further, I have no interest in knowing. They were issues of a different generation that were not my issues. I am just happy that after I started the family tree in a fit of coincidence, my Cousin Brian reached out to me on Facebook.

Facebook. Social Media. I have been such an idiot. I would think of my cousins from time to time over the years, but I didn’t know where they were or what they were doing. I knew that eventually my Aunt Joan (their mom) had re-married, but I did not know where she moved to. Time passed, the computer rose to prominence and social media was born. In that revolution of technology I had reconnected with old friends of my youth, but I never thought to look for the cousins time had misplaced. God bless you Cousin Brian.

I came back to my family tree (more a small bush than anything) after Father’s Day this year when my wonderful wife surprised me with a gift which will be giving for a long time – the Ancestry.com DNA kit. I was so excited when she gave it to me. I looked it up online, I researched it, I memorized the instructions (all of 4 steps), performed the test, and sent it in!

While waiting for results, I was able to refine my research techniques and filled in Nicholas’s generation though was still woefully short on Nanny’s. I found an image of the 1930’s census that had Solomon and his brood all living together in Brooklyn. So Solomon had immigrated as well. I found out the name of Solomon’s wife (or at least his second wife), and all the siblings of Nicholas along with a couple of daughters-in-law to Solomon (one of which was Nanny). I was getting excited, so I continued to dig. I found a sobering image of my Nanny’s gravestone. I located a passport application and picture for Solomon. I located the death date of most of Nicholas’s generation as well as associated locations.

While I was waiting, I did not want to lose momentum. So I worked on the Bell side of the family and started a family tree springing from Mom. I did the same thing with the Stovall family which is Jean-Marie’s enjoyable and loving clan. Finally, in less than a month’s time my DNA results arrived.

Thankfully they were as expected. I didn’t have to change out a desert heritage for lederhosen or give up my search into the annuls of Bethlehem for the cold climes of Siberia. When I gave permission to Ancestry.com to match my results to the results of others, I was given further proof of its reliability as one of my first cousins on Mom’s side of the family turned up as a top relation. Thank goodness, Jeb, we are related both by what we have been told and science!

It is fascinating to review and study the link of potential relatives. The list starts at first cousins and moves along rating the chances of a match as excellent, good, fair, and poor. One such excellent match was an unknown fourth cousin, Claudia. She had an amazingly full family tree rife with Handals. I did not see in it then a direct link to my branch (I knew too little) but reached out to her to ask if she could give me advice on how to find my own way.

Claudia lives in the U.S. but was born in Hondurus (Tegucigalpa I believe). I have enjoyed getting to know her and commune with a fellow Handal. She did me the favor of introducing me to her cousin Jorge who she described as the “Family Historian.” He lives in Tegucigalpa and has graciously and selflessly helped me. He inquired about what I knew of the Honduran Handals in my lineage. I told him of my grandmother, of her being from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and the names of her sisters. The name Lydia Handal was one he knew. There was a famous Honduran composer named Lydia Handal who was a national treasure. I didn’t know anything about this, though my father did have an album of my Great Aunt Lydia’s entitled “From Lydia with Love,” but I didn’t know of any other music.

Jorge then referred me to Guillermo (another cousin) who lived closer to San Pedro Sula. Guillermo helped me look into Lydia as he also filled me in on some generalities with the Handal family in Honduras – the largest of the Arab families in Honduras Guillermo said. But I had too little information on Lydia for him to be sure that our Lydia Handal was THE Lydia Handal.

Meanwhile, Jorge sent me an invitation to the “Handal Family Worldwide” Facebook group. My family has a Facebook group. Wow. On there, I introduced myself and in turn have met several other Handals who I have spoken with and found to be charming and wonderful. One of them, Myriam, stunned me with the question, “Is your father Frank, the same Frank Handal that took me and my daughters sailing in Charleston.” We talked back and forth on it, Charleston threw me as Dad did not do much sailing there. He mostly sailed on Lake Murry outside of Columbia, SC. Then I had a “Doh!” moment and sent her a picture of my dad and asked if that Frank were her Frank. It was (and that made me smile). Myriam turned out to be a first cousin of Dad’s, and thus my second cousin. I was a bit floored. Myriam is a daughter of a brother of Nanny’s. She was born in San Pedro Sula though lives in the U.S. now. She then confirmed that her Aunt Lydia, my Great Aunt Lydia, was THE Lydia Handal of national treasure fame, and that performance of her songs can be found on YouTube. Amazing.

Then another relative of some flavor, Joe, contacted me through Handal Family Worldwide and linked me to a document that connected me back to Nassar Handal in Bethlehem who was born in the mid 1600's. It was an incredibly emotional moment when I found our family within this document, and our lineage going back unbroken to the seventeenth century. My head is still spinning. Such a generous act to bring us into the fold. Prior to this when I would see the name Handal my faith in relationship was based solely on spelling, but now there is a feeling that reaches into my gene memory that I have never experienced before.

The joy of being back with my first cousins, the loving act of a simple gift from my wife, and walls tumbled. I am expanding family. I am not only gathering together something to pass along to my children and grandchildren, but something that can be shared with my siblings and my cousins Brian, Paul, and Jeanie. There are times that a task seems daunting and incredibly large, and then something magical occurs and the world itself shrinks to such a small thing I don’t know why I was ever intimidated by it. Now I can bring an elder into the house, and hopefully soon I will be able to say more than just that the Handal family is large and comes from Bethlehem.

Collage 2017

Each year is a collage of images, and feelings. They roll over you with the regularity of tides, tossing you about in its foam. This has been a year that has both challenged and rewarded us as a family. Tears of sadness and joy have been shed in mingled measures, but we have come to year's end stronger and with smiles of hope.

2017 started with the loss of our friend, Marc. Friend doesn’t cover it. He was family. We loved him dearly and he left us. It hurt. It still hurts. His husband Dennis left us five years ago, and our love for Dennis which could exist also through Marc has simply turned into ache with the both of them together and not with us. This end of an epoch in our lives has taken a strong toll and has dominated this year just trying to contextualize it (because the pain will never lessen, though it is finding its place). It was our son, Michael, that informed us of Marc’s death, and Michael stepped up as a man and helped lead all of us who loved Marc so as executor of Marc’s estate. We said our final goodbye to Marc this summer in Michigan with Michael and Nikki, Haley and her husband Mike, and our grandson Russell. It was hardest to be there with Russell, who was saying goodbye to his Godfather whom he loved deeply. Still the event was marked by the joy of the gathering of new friends and old, and people we have come to know as family. Stories and smiles were shared over food and drinks in Marc’s parents’ yard. There is a catharsis in storytelling that eases grief.

As ever the world does not stand still simply because you want it to stop. And God placed a joy in the midst of the grief. Haley’s family came together and spread their wings for Russell’s graduation from Colorado Springs Christian School. Our grandson of 18 years, who my wife and I (his GiGi and Bumpa) have watched, and held, and loved since his birth, was in the blink of an eye a high school graduate. After graduation Russell got a summer job with the Broadmoor Hotel (5 star) working on the landscape crew out at Seven Falls. I have talked to his supervisor and took great pride in her report of his strong work ethic and how readily he made friends with his team. Russell selected Colorado State University for college and moved up there in August. Last night nearly brought happy tears as I was texting with Russell and realized that he was wrapping up his first semester at CSU. Meanwhile, Haley went into extreme mom-mode and directed her son’s graduation festivities, and spearheaded his college prep (Target never knew what hit it!). Since August, whenever we talk to Haley, it is never long before she asks if we have talked to Russell lately because she hadn’t heard from him in two days. Her husband Mike has been a prince throughout the year being strength when strength was needed, being comforting when comforting was called for, and being raw labor for the prodigious to-do lists that Haley produced in this hectic year. They both seem to be adapting to the empty-nest well. They go out, have been to concerts (most recently Lady Gaga), and host gatherings. From this side of the empty nest, I remember far fewer smiles adjusting to the hollowing of our home. More power to you, Haley and Mike.

Then there was Michael (now Michael and Nikki, but I will cover that). No one has thrown us for a loop this past year like he has. He started the year anchoring us and others as he guided Marc’s family and estate while we mourned. In the spring, he and Nikki had us up to their home in Denver along with Haley and crew, and gave Jean-Marie and I a card. Puzzled we opened it to find an ultrasound photo and the word “surprise”. We were to be grandparents again! In time we were to find out the baby would be a grandson. Upon his birth 12 October 2017, he would take the name Bennett Stephen Sampson (the middle name being shared with myself and Nikki’s dad, an honor that I will not ever be able to describe or repay). He would be beautiful, and he would steal his GiGi and Bumpa’s heart from the minute he was born. Not to be outdone by the shock of the news of a new grandchild, a couple of weeks later Michael and Nikki hit us with the awe that they were moving in the summer to Charleston and purchasing Marc’s home. But Michael and Nikki were not done with the surprises yet. At Russell’s graduation ceremony, Michael sat next to his mom and casually showed her his left hand that was sporting a handsome new ring. Michael and Nikki had gotten married quietly in Denver in a civil ceremony so they could start this new phase in their growing life together as husband and wife. In the span of four months Michael and Nikki gave us one hell of a roller coaster ride: A new grandson, YAY! Moving to Charleston OHNO! Having the best daughter-in-law ever, YAY! Michael and Nikki, we look forward to all the time we can spend with your family, and ask only to take 2018 a bit easier on us, you have left us exhausted!

All the while, our daughter Louise and her husband Jeff have been forging their life in the mountains of Colorado in the town of Como. As a life lesson to all of us, they have chosen quality of life over the more material options. The careers they had were taking a toll on both, and so they made a change to enjoy life and each other at a slower pace. Louise and Jeff have good jobs with the county, and live in a lovely cabin that is warm, happy, and eclectic – much like its owners. Jeff dotes on Louise, and most recently has built her a meditation hut. His love is more than I could have ever asked for Louise (and it takes a load off a father and mother’s shoulders). Louise has been cooking, hiking, and fishing with Jeff, and building her spirituality. She laughs and loves more freely than I have ever seen her. I envy the choices that Louise and Jeff have made. As can be seen, the brevity of this paragraph is a wonderful statement to the simplicity Louise and Jeff have achieved.

All this and more have flooded, swamped, and elevated Jean-Marie and I this year. We have made new friends in the wake of losing our dearest one. We have the wonderful dichotomy of two grandsons 18 years apart in their lives. And have added to that the symmetry by being named Godparents to our niece Sarah and her husband Mike’s new arrival William. The symmetry comes in the form of William being our second Godson. Our first Godson is our nephew Sam, a wonderful young man, high school senior, football player with a full ride to Western Kentucky, who is18 years older than William. We cherish our role as Godparents and are blessed that Sarah and Mike entrusted us with this honor. Jean-Marie and I have also traveled much this year, to Michigan for Marc’s funeral, to Athens (Georgia not Greece) for William’s baptism, to Chattanooga to watch Godson number 1 play football (and to get our eardrums burst by Sam's mom’s cheerleading), to Memphis to attend the wedding of our nephew Christopher, and to Charleston to greet and be captivated by our grandson Bennett. We also said goodbye to our little dog of 17 years, Sailor. Sailor, you were your own man and a curmudgeon after my own heart. I still feel you walking on me in bed. You will never be far from our smiles. Through the roiling surf of 2017, Jean-Marie and I have buoyed, hugged, and loved each other constantly. Jean-Marie and I have children and their spouses that leave us in awe, a grandson that grows in strength and character constantly it seems, a new grandson that we cannot possibly get enough of, and blessings in our sorrows and joys that we thank God for.

Thank you, 2017. 2018 we await your tides and have no idea what will wash ashore.

Sailor on Leave

No life springs fully formed from the womb of its mother. There are back stories and then memory built upon memory before any fullness is attained. Its no different for Sailor. His story begins before his birth when we said goodbye to Angel.

In 2000, after 14 years, my first dog Angel passed. She was with me almost from my earliest moments in Colorado, rescued from the Pueblo Humane Society at the age of 2. She was with me through my brief first marriage, through reinstated bachelorhood, through meeting and marrying Jean-Marie. Truth be told, Jean-Marie's youngest Louise adopted and claimed Angel for her own before I moved in with the family. Angel's death was difficult on all of us. A couple of months after Angel left us, Jean-Marie made the “innocent” request of wanting me to go to the Colorado Springs Humane Society to just “look” at the doggies. I was not thrilled with the idea, I was still hurting from Angel, and I was suspicious of Jean-Marie’s motives. But we came away from that visit empty handed although I did accidently allowed that I found a Maltese there cute.

That slip of the tongue lead to Sailor joining our clan. He was a pup of a Maltese from a breeder in Cañon City. Jean-Marie had seen the litter advertised in the paper, called, and then asked me if she could have one of the puppies for her birthday that August. She said the breeder had told her the pup she wanted would come with papers, but was not show-worthy because he would likely be large for his breed. So we were getting him on sale! We were practically making money! I can never say no to Jean-Marie…never.

A deal was struck with the breeder to meet at the Highway 115 Truck Stop, so that I didn’t have to drive all the way to Cañon City. It all had the feeling of a drug deal going down at that lonely sun burnt location awash in dust devils and smelling of dry earth and diesel fumes. I handed the man an envelope of cash, he passed to me a small cardboard box containing a tiny white furry creature and a strip of wash cloth. He told me the puppy didn’t have a name yet, but that they called him Tongue Man, because his tongue poked out of his mouth most of the time.  Then he climbed into his pickup and waved as his tires squealed away in a cloud of dust. I turned back to our old beat up van that Jean-Marie and I used for floral delivery, and climbed in with this new family member, and headed north up 115 towards the Springs.

During that drive, the puppy wriggled from his box and managed to climb up onto my shoulder for the drive to his forever family, tongue out. I no longer remember how he got the name Sailor, but I think it is safe to place all the credit on Jean-Marie for that. It fit him in some way.

Sailor was not really a people person. In some ways he was like a cat, allowing just enough attention from a person to let him know that he was liked, and then he would  aloofly move off claiming a type of ownership to world about him. When later we got Stovie, a Humane Society dog – called an Australian Shepherd, looking like a Jack Russell, and eventually growing to a statuesque 90 pounds - Sailor tolerated her, but never quite cottoned to her. They maintained their own space, and 13 pound sailor without question became the Alpha dog in the house – that includes being my boss as well.

When Stovie passed, Sailor simply took the extra space to naturally be an expansion of his domain. He was a self-contained, self-assured, and commanding ball of white. He was our companion, our friend, and the boss of me.

When he would play with us, it was a game of toss and fetch with the promise of a treat at the end of the play. He quickly got the idea that one fetch of the gnarled little stuffed bear was enough for a treat. He would chase it, pick up, drop it, then run into the kitchen and wait. When we stonewalled, and insisted he needed to exercise a bit more before earning that treat, he just stopped playing altogether. Food was a driving force with him, but no matter how much he loved to eat, he would never let food be his master.

His old age was defined by a matured grumpiness that made him a classic curmudgeon. His active periods grew shorter and shorter, and his nap times grew longer and longer. He kept shunning proffered affection, because affection had to be on his begrudging terms. When we went to bed (he slept with us…or us with him is probably more like it), he would be sure to be curled up against me or my wife. He was always most comfortable being the initiator of contact. It was his way.

This 10^th of October 2017 at the age of 17, almost his whole life spent with us, marked his passing. He had lost the last of his bounce, given up what smiles he could muster, was in pain from arthritis, and was slowly yielding to dispassionate and uncaring dementia. It was his time, not our choice. Dr. Wilhoit of Bijou Animal Hospital (the doctor who knew him best) was attending physician. Jean-Marie and I offered what comfort we could to Sailor as we cried while Sailor took his leave. We now sit wet-cheeked holding each other, and thinking of him. We love you sailor, we feel you in your absence, and we remember you for so many things.

Christmas Time and Time Again

I’m convinced that Christmas is so cherished a holiday in part because it fits our oral tradition so well.  Gatherings of family and friends to open gifts and share meals is not only the perfect incubator for new memories, but is the ideal venue to share old ones.  I’m no different.  I am drinking in the experiences of this holiday season, and I find past Christmas’s rising happily unbidden to the surface.  These memories come in no particular order, no particular priority of smiles, and they come as naturally as the season itself.

When I was a young man and in my freshman year at Clemson, I remember coming home for Christmas break.  I couldn’t wait to see my friends from high school and their families.  One of the first things I did was grab some magic markers and a square of cardboard from one of my dad’s dry cleaned shirts, and I made an arrow sign with the words “My Tree” on it.  I then got my little brother Greg and my youngest sister Ginny to pose for a picture in the upstairs hallway pointing the arrow sign towards the family tree in the living room downstairs.  I then took this sign and my camera to the Lovejoys, the Wilsons, the Barkers, the Campbells, the Whitakers and others.  I got that film processed as quickly as possible and put together an album, I just couldn’t wait to do that.  I think on some level I intuitively understood that I could only experience these connections that were so critical to my formation this one last time in my life.  Beyond freshman year, the centrifugal spin of life casts childhood friends apart towards their individual destinies.

I also recall a Christmas just seven years ago when I was in the car with my grandson, Russell.  He was about ten years old.  It was Christmas school break and he had been to work with me for the day.  We were listening to 850 KOA Sports Zoo on the radio for the long ride home, and one of the hosts was going on an uncharacteristic rant and accidently implied the nonexistence of Santa Claus.  I took a quick look toward Russell and held my breath, I didn’t know what to say to him.  At ten, some children believe, some don’t, and others are on the cusp.  I didn’t know what Russell thought about Santa, and I was frozen as my mind held a veritable traffic jam of scenarios it was attempting to deal with.  In the midst of my panic, my grandson placed a calming hand on my shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, Bumpa, I know about Santa.”

This Christmas while listening to carols as my wife and I drove to our daughter Haley’s Christmas party, the radio station played “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”  Jean-Marie and I were singing along and laughing as we took turns forgetting how many maids were milking and how many swans were swimming, only sure that there were five golden rings.  After a time, we were both struck with memories form a Christmas at least fifteen years ago.  We found ourselves hosting a dinner for a group friends from Texas.  A dozen of us around a long table, enjoying good food and good conversation.  After dinner, Jean-Marie and I served dessert on our brand new “Twelve Days of Christmas” dessert plates.  I no longer recall how it started or whose idea it was, but we began singing and laughing our way through that song, each person singing the part that was on their plate.

There have been other Christmas’s and other memories.  There will be more Christmas’s and new memories.  They will find places for themselves in my brain with no guarantee when or if they will rise to the surface.  It’s not that different from looking at presents beneath the tree.  You don’t know what lies inside the wrapping, but each box is a gift and a surprise and a smile.  Merry Christmas.