The following is the talk I gave at my wonderful mother’s funeral on November 2, 2019. She was 75.

How is a girl expected to cram 50 years of influence and relationship into merely a few paragraphs? With a lot of prayer and painful editing.

I’ve narrowed it down to three character traits of our mom that seem to bubble up as a recurring theme in the notes from her beloved friends and relatives who have reached out to us since her passing.

Beauty, Talent and Love.

Beauty:

Some of my earliest memories of my mom was how beautiful I thought she was. When she and Dad would go out for an evening or event and she was dressed up with heels, a dress, make up and jewelry, we’d beg her to “Spin Mommy, spin!” so we could see her dress flare out. It just tickled us to see our graceful parents in love and excited to be off interacting with friends, colleagues, business partners, or ward members. As we grew older, it was always fun to see them dance together in the cultural hall for Stake Dances for New Year’s Eve, or on cruise ships after dinner, or on the tennis courts for 24th of July celebrations in St. Johns, AZ. Dad would do this little lift and glide trick holding Mom close, and we’d sit there gaping while everyone around us would clap and cheer. We would blush with pride. I also have an incredible memory of watching her perform in the Nutcracker on toe shoes. For a woman who had had three children by that point, that was quite a feat. She was a beautiful dancer.

For years, well beyond the age that dress-up was considered appropriate or normal, we would love to run around with our neighbor friends in the Ponderosa Pine forest behind our childhood home in the tiara she had won as runner up to Miss Merced County California. On special occasions she’d allow us to gently pull out her bridal veil from the aromatic cedar chest her Irish Grandpa Phelan had built her and try it on. The photos of her on her wedding at the Oakland California Temple made us dream of what it would be like on our own special day.

Mom made us girls feel like little princesses often. We had matching outfits as little girls, and Easter dresses for Rachelle and I, and shorts and suspenders for RobRoy made us feel extra special. When I was in fifth grade for that year’s traditional Christmas Eve pajamas, she made Rachelle and I peignoir sets. And if you don’t know what that is, it’s a nightgown with a matching robe. Mine was yellow swiss dot and Rachelle’s was pink. The sleeves were layers up on layers of lace with a long ribbon and snaps on the front. I had never felt so regal and spoiled. I remember sleeping on top of my covers with my arms straight down by my side so I wouldn’t wrinkle it. How she got these projects done without us kids ever seeing a scrap of fabric to give it away is beyond me.

I recently found typed up a handwritten diary she kept from her Study Abroad trip to London in the 1990s with Dad, Rachelle, RobRoy, and her niece Chantel. It was amazing how different it was from my dad’s journals, which were agendas and travel logs and bits of history. Mom’s entries were all about the art shows, the plays they saw, the dessert’s they ate, the hats they wore, the music that was played, the gardens they strolled, and the conversations that were struck up with shop owners. It was just so HER!

Talent:

Talent could have been rolled into beauty, because she used her talents freely to bless and beautify everything around her. Our mom:

Could Cut, curl, perm, braid and style hair, apply make-up and color drape you.
Made our Halloween and dance costumes, prom dresses, wedding dresses.
Throw a surprise, holiday, dinner or ward party for any size gathering, as she was a wonderful cook and baker, making everything from the food, to the table settings, to the music to the entertainment herself. One of her family’s most favorite items being her lemon merengue pie.
Pull in friends and family to join her in bottling peaches, pears, jams, pickles, spaghetti sauce and tomatoes. Most of these things would come from trips up to Utah, because all we could seem to grow in Flagstaff was huge, nasty mustard leaf plants.
Lead a ward choir, even when she lived at an assisted living center where in her words “half of the members were blind, half were deaf and the other half couldn’t carry a tune.”
Being so well read, as I would read aloud to her on her sick bed, I would have to pause and spell a word out for her to help me with my pronunciation.
Write beautifully, as she loved attending a journal writing class for the last few years of her life. I take just a sample from a narrative she titled “Stage Struck”
- “My life-long passion for musical theater was born in the late 1950’s when my parents took me to San Francisco to see Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison performing in My Fair Lady. That teenaged girl, just a few years older than I, was beautiful, and her gorgeous voice was thrilling. I was enchanted with the music, learning not only her songs, but those of every other character as well. Revolving stage sets changed the grimy streets of London where Eliza dreamed of “A room somewhere,” to Henry Higgins’ library ringing with the strains of “The Rain in Spain,” and then to the formal ballroom where Eliza made her triumphant debut as a lady pronounced by Professor Higgin’s rival voice coach as being “Hungarian . . . and of royal birth!” The costumes were amazing . . . the denizens of Covent Garden wore colorful, patchwork petticoats under their drab skirts; the black and white chapeaus of the ladies at the Ascot Races have not faded from memory. The exuberance of the Cockney dancers contrasted brilliantly with the formal, stately movements of the upper class. Although Audrey Hepburn portrayed Eliza Doolittle beautifully in the subsequent film version that also featured incredible costumes and scenery, I will never forget that magical live performance, and as we left the theater, “I Could Have Danced All Night!”

Love:

Beautiful and talented are only part of the story though. Our mom was just so full of love. She loved animals and especially little black and white Boston Terriers. She had grown up with them and brought their spunk and companionship into our own home from Tinker to Sparky to Babe to Zoe and Zorro.

Mom loved people and made friends easily. Some would say she was a natural saleswoman/missionary, as she could strike up a conversation with any waiter, store clerk, seatmate on a plane, or shy teenager. They could feel her love and eagerly responded in kind.

She ministered to others in love through gifts of food, flowers, shared books, invitations to outings to plays or musical performances, but mostly just through her amazing ability to listen. Later her love notes and phone calls were supplemented with comments on your Facebook posts and texts using all kinds of perfectly matched emojis.

You never felt rushed when you were talking to Colleen Platt. I would come home from high school, flop down to one of her ever-present chocolate chip cookies and say “So first hour this and this happened, then he said this to me at the lockers. Then second hour . . . “ and on and on and she was interested and engaged in every tidbit, every school day. What was important to us was important to her. This week, since she has passed, I have thought at least 10 times “Oh, I need to tell Mom that we have to put our dog down this week.” Or “I’ve got to forward these photos on. Mom will get such a kick out of the kid’s costumes.” Then I felt this sharp realization “Oh no. I can’t do that now.” I am happy to know that she is allowed to peek in on these services to see her beautiful, talented, and loving grandchildren and family and friends who have gathered.

Let me end with the last conversations I had with her last week. She was in her hospital bed, so frail and in pain. She was on pain medication, and that didn’t help her declining communication any. One evening though she focused her eyes on mine and said “I just don’t want to leave you.” I leaned forward, squeezed her hand and said “Mom, we want you to go. But we want you to stay too. But we will are going to be just fine.” With a cry in her voice she squeaked “Well I know that.” That got me and I just laid my head on her chest and bawled. She lifted her hand and comb my hair back from my face for three strokes. It was the most comforting, natural, and familiar moment with my mother that I could have asked for.

By allowing all of her children and grandchildren to say their goodbyes and hanging on just long enough for Rachelle, RobRoy and I to be there together, holding her as she took her last breath, she gave us that wonderful opportunity to see her transition to the reunion with Dad, her parents, her in-laws, and so many dear friends. We then knelt as a family and gave thanks to our Heavenly Father for the beautiful, talented, and loving Colleen that is ours.

We love you Mom.