Writer. Film script based on the author’s book, For the Love of Teddi. Contracted by Camp Good Days & Special Times. Under review.

The oncologist told her parents that if she made it to April, without any disturbances, her cancer might be cured. She was twelve years old. Once a beautiful young lady—a cheerleader and bubbly popular, she was now grotesque looking. Obese. Two brain operations. Blind. Hearing loss.

Yet she wanted to be baptized. She wanted to ask permission to die. Teddi told her mother that a young boy, with a beautiful face and kind, wanted her to go with him. Her mother told her to invite him to dinner, that all little boys love spaghetti. But Teddi wasn’t in a place for humor. Her mother then asked, “Do you know the little boy’s name, Teddi?” There was a long silence, she told me, and from the dimly-lit room she heard her daughter say, “It’s Jesus, Mommy.”

Based on a true story, and my book (in its third edition), the movie script takes us back to a time when the word “cancer” was seldom said out loud as if doing so would beckon the dreaded disease to one’s door. And even more awful, childhood cancer was something that was seldom talked about, and children kept in isolation. Family, friends, and neighbors thought they could “catch” cancer.

The story was a breakthrough one, told from many points of view, including her parents, siblings, doctors, nurses, schoolmates, teachers, and friends. In particular three of her closest friends. It’s the story of how the Camp Good Days organization got started, and why. It’s about volunteers, young and old. It’s about turning tragedy into something very good.

The story is about a modest hope—as if anything could replace the loss of a child. Her father, Gary Mervis, kept at it until he had built the fourth largest organization in the world for all manner of childhood afflictions, from disease to gun violence.

Though everyone, especially her Dad, wanted April to come earlier than what the calendar said, her mother knew they couldn’t wait any longer, and she had to return to the hospital for her final days.