Our story begins with a poem written anonymously just before the turn of the century and published in a book called "Poems Teachers Ask For." This was one of my favorite poems my mother would read to me when I was a small child. I loved this poem so much that I memorized only parts of it, as the entire poem was quite long. The poem was like a deathbed confession of a dying old woman about the accidental murder of her sister. In a fight, Bessie strikes Maggie causing her to loose her balance and slip on the moss grown rocks on the cliff's edge at the base of a coastal lighthouse. Maggie's death sends Bessie into years and years of torment and darkness. When we first meet Bessie in the poem, we realize a tremendous amount of information about Bessie from one line in the poem that says, "Why see how my eyes have faded, and my hair is white as snow - and thin too, can't you see it is?" She is an old woman with gray hair telling her story to a nurse named Maggie, who happens to have the same name of her dead sister. In fact, she is somewhat disturbed because "I tear it sometimes, SO!!"

Well of course as a writer director attempting to adapt a poem to a screenplay I began to ask many questions, that I felt needed to be answered about this old woman. Well my first adaptation became a thirty page script focusing mainly on the hospital setting with flash backs to the death of her sister. I was quite pleased with the script and presented it for a grade in my screenwriting class at Lane Community College, several years ago. I got an "A." But this was just scratching the surface of this story. Within lay hidden treasures that only personal experience could make me aware. What could have happened in her life from the time of her sisters' death "as little things, you know", until her death as a gray-haired-old-woman?

This second adaptation builds on the first and expands the story of Bessie to include her entire life from birth to death. She is the protagonist in our story. For this story let us suffice to say that she has suffered intense calamity in her lifetime, call her a Calamity Jane. When we first meet her on screen we see a tormented old woman institutionalized for lack of a living will, and no surviving relatives. She is in the throws of a deep, dark depression for many, many years. In comes Nurse Maggie, a woman tormented with guilt for not having helped her grandmother to die. Maggie feels compassion for Bessie and begins to establish a bond with her, nurturing her.

The first time Bessie speaks to Nurse Maggie is on one particular night when Maggie had just about a week on the job. Maggie had come into check on Bessie, the night was clear and the moon was shinning brightly. This brightness filled Bessie's room and Maggie couldn't help but notice that Bessie looked like an angel resting peacefully in the moonlight. Maggie strokes Bessie gently on the forehead verbalizing her picture of Bessie, when Bessie abruptly raises her voice and says "LIAR!" Shortly after Maggie begins working at the institution, Bessie's memories are reawakened and she begins to experience severe nightmares wherein she wakes up screaming and pulling out her hair. As a result of this behavior, she is heavily medicated, but not before she makes a desperate plea to Nurse Maggie to help her end her life. Bessie wants to commit suicide! For all intents and purposes she has become the "bread and butter" of the institution that cares for her, the year is 2030. Furthermore, the facility claims to be "Christian" run and strongly condemns assisted suicide even though the law in 2030 is much different. Oregon voters have passed a new law that strictly limits the culpability and liability of anyone assisting in a suicide, for any reason. In the news, several other states have passed similar laws to ones that Oregon had pioneered and the Supreme Court is deciding a case that is sure to have a tremendous impact on Euthanasia.

Expanding on the original screenplay to adequately tell this story in an hour, we will be shooting scenes recreating her birth in the Late50's/Early60's. We have decided to make Maggie and Bessie fraternal twins. Because of circumstances surrounding their conception and birth, a decision is made by her parents to raise the two girls as cousins, because one had blonde hair and blue eyes and the other had dark hair and dark eyes. The truth is that marital infidelity had taken place by both parents, and neither one is sure who is the father of one, the other, or both. The secret is revealed at around age 13 or 14 and results in the death of Maggie at the coastal lighthouse. However, this is just a small part of the story and also the part that most relates to the poem. Finally, I want to tell you all that this story will take place in Oregon. Shooting will be primarily in Florence for the scenes in early 50's/60's. We will be shooting in Eugene and for scenes in the 70's. There will be scenes in 2000 showing the end of Bessie's long-term relationship to Inga, when Inga overdoses on drugs, killing herself. Bessie's deathbed confession & suicide plea will be in 2030 in a modern long term care facility and senior care center. We have assembled an incredibly talented group of actors for this project who are willing to volunteer their time in order to get this story told. And we have a committed and talented crew to insure completion of this project.

The main themes we will be dealing with in this story are accidental murder, domestic violence, adultery, homosexuality, health care abuses, suicide--assisted or otherwise, mercy killing, alcoholism, drug abuse, recovery, and love--unconditional or otherwise. This story will contain some graphic violence, nudity, and displays of sexuality. The expanded story builds through the use of flashbacks by gradually allowing the viewer to examine various episodes of Bessie's life and the issues she is confronted with from different points of view through the eyes of Maggie the Nurse as well as through Bessie's eyes. Many of these flashback scenes will be shot using improvisational theater acting techniques. Although our story is a fictionalization based on an anonymously written poem from the late 1800's, the issues it confronts are extremely compelling and rarely dealt with on public television. We want to show that the key to dealing with these issues lies in the demonstration of intense compassion and understanding for those on opposite ends of the spectrum of pain and suffering. We also want to show that there are no easy answers when it comes to deciding on suicide. Assisted suicide is a very personal thing. Our story will help audiences to explore both ends of the spectrum on this, and many issues. We are ready to begin shooting this production and expect to complete it by October 2001.