Letter To Colleen From her Mother

To My Dear Sweet Colleen,

I have been thinking about you almost constantly lately.  I’d like to share some of my thoughts with you. 

You were born on a beautiful winter day in December.  It was just before Christmas.  I thought of the birth of our Savior.  I felt quite special to have a baby at the time we celebrate his birth.  A few days before I went to the hospital, Jerry came home from school with a fever.  The next day he was covered in red spots.  Chicken Pox! Three days later, Stanley did the same thing.  The doctor didn’t want me to go home with the baby.  But there was no other place to go.  We tried to isolate you with just your father and me taking care of you.  Two days later, Karen got the chicken pox.  Then, low and behold, your father got them too.  This was in the middle of the winter and I was trying to take care of everyone with the chicken pox and a new baby too.  Remember, no automatic washer and dryer back then.  Sure enough, when you were just 14 days old, you got the chicken pox too.  You had a pox on your little toe that was as big as your toe.  The Dr. thought you should have had some immunity from breast milk, but  I had never had chicken pox.  You managed to scratch a pox off that was on your cheek.  It left a tiny scar, still visible today.  Christmas was hectic but we still had a very nice one, as everyone was excited to have you in the family. 

Did I ever tell you it was your father who chose your name?  I had chosen Karen’s name, so he said it was his turn to name you.  I agreed, as long as I liked the name too.  When he said “Colleen”, I loved it.  Also it was your father’s idea to add Joyce as your middle name.  I was very pleased to share my name with you.  I hope you like it too.

It seemed like you were always in a hurry.  You could hold up your head immediately, you sat up and walked and talked early too.  You had a bit of wanderlust in you.  As soon as you could walk you were off to somewhere.  By the time you were three, you often visited the neighbors, by yourself.  It seemed like I was always looking for you.  Sometimes, I would find you at Myron B. Childs.  He would feed you cookies, which didn’t help matters.

One night you were about four, I awoke in the middle of the night to find all the outside lights on.  I looked out the window, and there you were, in your nightgown, swinging as high as you could go.  I was never sure what to expect from you.  At age five, you tried barbering.  You took the scissors and cut the cat’s whiskers.  You thought they were in his way.  On a vacation to Yellowstone Park, you fell while playing with a girl in the next campground, dislocating your hip.  You were in a great deal of pain.  I wanted to return to Ogden immediately, but the park ranger insisted that we go to the hospital in Mammoth.  That hospital was small and no doctor was available when we arrived.  So, without even an aspirin, they put you in bed until morning.  It hurt you very much to be moved.  When I took you to the bathroom, it hurt a great deal, I said I was sorry, you replied, “It’s OK mom, I know you didn’t mean too”.  I almost cried you were so brave.  A doctor came to the hospital that night, as there was an auto accident in the park at about 1 AM in the morning.  Shortly, they came to look in on you.  Under anesthesia, they put your hip back in place.  Because you were so small, they did not want to put a body cast on you.  However, you could not put any weight on it for six weeks.  Could I keep you quiet for six weeks?  (I couldn’t keep you still for 10 minutes).  “Yes”, I said, “I will try”.  The couch in the living room was a hide-a-bed, so it became your home for the next six weeks.  You were wonderful at staying on the bed. 

Remember when you broke your arm?  One day at school, you dropped 2 pennies (change from milk money) down inside the cast.   As you couldn’t get them out, they stayed there until the Dr. x-rayed your arm a few weeks later.  By then they were black and corroded.  When the Dr. saw this on the x-ray, he got real excited and cut off the cast immediately.  Then he wanted to know what the H--- two pennies were doing in the cast. 

You were a great athlete.  You excelled in almost every sport.  No one could bead you in tether ball.  You had calluses on your wrists to prove it.  You were also a great softball player.  Playing soft ball was where you met your dear husband Brian, but that’s another story.  The city league you were on took 1^st place in the state, and you when to New York for the finals.  You had to earn expense money and worked hard to do so.  You were pretty good at riding the family horse, although you did take quite a few tumbles. 

I will never forget the shock I felt when I cam home from work and found you had talked your dad into letting you paint you bedroom RED!  I didn’t ever get used to it either.  It wasn’t long before we softened it to bright pink. 

Your teenage years were a challenge, although we did get through them pretty well.  You worked hard in school and often had a 4.0 report card.

You super surprised me with your unexpected trip to Idaho, (That’s also another story).

I watched you grow as you took on housewife duties and became a mom.  I saw how much you lived your husband and children.  Thank you for teaching my grand children the gospel, for I love my grandchildren very much, and the gospel is true. 

I was completely devastated when I learned you had ALS.  I have always loved and admired you, but now I truly saw what a special, strong and valiant spirit you are.  I watched you in the biggest battle of your life.  Although this insidious disease would rob you of almost all your physical body, it could not touch your spirit.  YOU WON the fight my precious child—YOU WON--.  You have amazed me with your cheerful attitude.  You always have a smile for everyone.  I have never heard you complain.  What a great example you are to me Dear Colleen.  You are my hero.

I am grateful for the time you stayed at my house.  It was a pleasure to take care of you.  I loved every minute of it.  You taught me so much.  I am a better and stronger person because of you. 

For the past eight years, I have had the honor and privilege of being an ordinance worker at the Ogden Temple.  One of my choice experiences was the day you, Brian and Mandee came to the Temple.  I was delighted to be assigned to that session.  I had the privilege of giving you the sacred tokens.   I was also able to take you through the veil.  How grateful I am for that special memory.

I love you my dearest little girl.  If I could have spared you from this trial, I would gladly have done so.  I will try my very best to become a better person so I can be reunited with you again….  I know our Heavenly Father loves you and is pleased with all you have done.  I am so grateful to the Lord for sending such a special spirit to our home.  I am so proud to be your mother.

Eternal Love,

 Your Mother

 (Joyce Heiner Fisher)

Whittington Family Ribbon tree for ALS

This is Colleen's sister Marilyn, her husband Chuck, Daughter Kaydee, Sons Jaron and Jeffery. They found that there was a ribbon color for ALS so they wrapped their tree with it and put a big Purple bow on it for Colleen.
Thanks Whittingtons. We love you!

How our life together started

The Colleen and Brian story as told by the dark side….
So I have been instructed to write the story of how we met. It was sometime in late April or early May of 1974. Don’t know the exact day, but I do know other exact dates as you will see.
Anyway the way we met was on a softball field… My older brother Jerry and I both worked at Utility Trailer, in Freeport center, and at lunch that particular day, he asked me what I was doing after work. Lets see, I was 19, not seeing anyone and living at home…so I told him I had no plans and he ask me to help coach his ladies softball team (for Clinton City) as his assistant coaches were out of town. So I agreed to help him. I went to the Clinton elementary field and that is where it all started. They did not have a full team that day, so I helped play different positions, one of them being catcher during batting practice. I kept harassing all the ladies, but especially this one really cute girl with blonde hair. I gave her a load of trash talk when she was batting, but she kept hitting the ball, and hitting it well. I do remember that she had white shorts (knee length) on but that is about all I can SAY I remember about her. The next day at work I pestered my brother until he told me who she was, he said, “Oh that’s Colleen Fisher, why?” I told him I thought she was rather cute, and he informed me that we had nothing in common and she was still in high school. Well, that did not deter me, and I soon had her phone number and sat down one of the next nights and called her. Whoever it was that answered, they told me she was babysitting, and gave me the phone number there. I called and we talked for about 30 minutes or longer, and set up a date. The day for the date was 18 May, 1974. I picked her up and we went to Ye Lion’s Den, in South Ogden. I had a business meeting there, but we had a wonderful dinner and that started a series of dates from then on. We went to school dances, as the next fall she started her senior year of high school. She celebrated her 18th birthday that year on December 9th. She was now a legal adult in Utah, even though I was not, as I was only 20. Back then the men were not legal until they turned 21. This has an important part in this story I promise. We had decided that we wanted to get married sometime in the future, so at her Senior Cotillion in January and her corsage contained the engagement ring. Well that was the fun part, and the un-fun part had started a few weeks earlier, when I told my parents that I was going to get engaged. My mom (gotta love her anyway) told me that this plan did not fit into her plans for me, and she would not allow me to live under her roof if I persisted with this ridiculous idea. Imagine that, she did not think it was a good idea that we got engaged. So, I moved out of the house and into an apartment in South Ogden with Gene and Dan. A few weeks later when my mom was talking to me again, she told me that she would not come to my wedding, or support our decision at all, because it still was not in her plans for me. She said that not only no support from her, but she would not support us with a wedding reception or anything along those lines. Well because of this ‘support’ from her, we discussed that it would be much easier to ‘elope’ and take her out of the equation. Mind you, it was just ‘talk’ at first, but every time I went to my parents home, which I did at least a couple of times a week, I would get blasted about it, making it so I did not want to go visit them at all. So our discussions became more of ‘what if’ and we decided that if we were going to do it, we would have to go to Idaho to get married. Nevada had the 21 year old thing for men at the time also, but Idaho had changed their legal age for men to 18, a very progressive state. Now the next problem, we needed to have blood tests in order to get married back then, so we ‘arranged’ a trip to Preston Idaho , and went to a clinic to get our blood tests done. We visited my Grandmother while there, and told her of our pending plans to get married. Mistake, as she talked to my parents shortly there after and the war intensified. I had arranged for the clinic to mail the results to my address so that the parents would not see them. They did not come for a few weeks, and I finally called them. They had been waiting for us to pick them up. So they mailed them and when I got them in my hands, they were only good for two more days. You can bet that Colleen and I discussed the issue that night, and the next. The last day the blood work was still valid, was Thursday, March 20, 1975. We did not know if we were going to go through with it or not. But in case we did, Colleen wore a white print dress with purple flowers on it to school that day. One of her classes was to work in the office and take calls for attendance when they came in. So I called her and said, are we going to do this or not? She said come pick her up and I did, she checked herself out of school …well, and we drove up to Malad, Idaho, and went to the courthouse. Why Malad, not Preston? In my mind it was because at that time, newspapers normally published a list of marriage licenses issued, and did not want my grandmother to see it. Malad was in another county and had their own little weekly newspaper. We had not decided at this point how and when we would tell people that we got married. We filled out the paperwork, and went before their Justice of the Peace, Ralph Hadfield. They brought in two of the ladies from the clerks office, and we got married. I remember that after we said our ‘I do’s’ he pronounced us man and wife and said you may kiss the bride. I turned to kiss her, and she was frozen in place like an ice sculpture. It was NOT a very romantic kiss as she basically was in shock. We were married! After congratulations from those in attendance, as we walked out, I commented to Colleen, I wonder how many of them think we HAD to get married. She agreed that they all probably did, but since our first child was not born for 2 ½ years after that day, it was not true. The only thing I am going to say about our decision is that it gave me that much more time to have her by my side, given that her disease is going to separate us long before it should have happened. On our drive home that day, we stopped at Tremonton, at the Crossroads café to eat our wedding lunch. We spent the rest of the day together and made a decision, our first as a married couple. We were not going to tell anyone about our marriage until Colleen finished High School. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, to get married and not tell anyone, but that was our decision. So she finished out the school year out, with no one in our families knowing of our marriage. I was there for her graduation, possibly the only husband of a graduate that year. Now some may say that I robbed the cradle, but remember, it was because I was not of legal age that we had to go out of state, she was the one that was legal, so does that not make her the cradle robber? This part will have to do you for the first little while, and next installment will tell you of our ‘telling’. It too has interesting twists and turns to talk about. But for now, this is the dark side signing off again.

Telling the families….a love story continued…..

Telling the families….a love story continued…..
When we left off, Colleen had just graduated from high school (with honors I may add and the best quarter of school in her whole high school career, was the one she was married for… I guess she didn’t have to worry about boys that quarter. That is what I figure anyway. Actually now that I think about it, her whole senior year was the best she had in high school, so I was part of it all. Well back to the story… Well where were we, besides married and as far as I knew only her and I and a few people in Malad Idaho, knew that we were married. We had not decided when and how to tell anyone, and Colleen was entertaining the idea of just having a civil wedding after I turned 21 and could sign, and not tell anyone that we had been married before. Then we got called into her Bishop’s office one Sunday afternoon to talk about our upcoming wedding. Colleen tried to ask him if it was okay to have a ‘pretend’ wedding. He said he did not understand, what she meant by pretend, so she said just one so people will think we got married. He still did not understand, and so she said that we were already married and could we put on a fake wedding for our parents. His answer, you can imagine. He asks if anyone knew, and we both said no. His counsel was for us to go tell our parents and get it over with. So we left there and decided to go and talk with my brother Jerry and his wife Teri. After all it was their fault we had met in the first place, because Jerry coached the softball team, and Teri played on it. When we talked to them they told us how it would probably go at my parent’s home. We would tell them and then my dad would say something like “Well, what are you going to do now?”
Jerry and Teri went with us to my parent’s house and after telling them, my dad made a great statement. He looked at us and said “Well, what are you going to do now?” That was the easy one; my mom actually hugged Colleen and welcomed her to the family. Now came the tough one, Colleen’s parents. Well we went and told them, and her mom came unglued to say the least. She yelled and screamed at me for quite a while, told me how I had disappointed her and how she had trusted me with her daughter. ( we did not know until many, many years later, that the reaction probably came because her mother and father had eloped also). Then when all was said and done, they invited us to stay at their house until we could get a place of our own. That only took a few days, as someone Fisher’s knew had a daughter just moving out of a basement apartment in Clearfield. So we got the information and moved in quickly to start a real life of our own. Then came the most surprising part; my mother (who did not let me live in the house after getting engaged, and who threatened to veto our wedding and reception) called Colleen’s mother to talk about a reception for us. Colleen’s mom was dead set against it, as we had already chosen our path, but my mother stated that if she had to, she would hold a reception for us, so after all was said and done, they gave us a reception, held at Fisher’s house outside on a beautiful June day. Colleen’s mom, who had made wedding cakes for years, made our cake and catered the reception herself. It was a wonderful evening. We had lots of guests, and I had extremely long hair for that night.
Colleen was beautiful, and there is no other way to describe her. She was wearing her sister-in-law Jill, wedding dress. Her colors were purple and pink and what else should I expect from someone who shares a birthday with Mr. Purple socks himself, Donny Osmond. She has always loved purple.
After all that, what in our young married life would not be easier than what we went through to get there?
A side note to this all, one of our beautiful daughters eloped, so we now have a three generation ‘Tradition’ going on here….. did not say it was a good tradition, just a tradition.
Guess it is time for the dark side to go back into hibernation for a while. Colleen ask me to type this as it is getting harder and harder for her to type anything at all, as her left hand is fading more and more…