Girls, It's Time To Get Serious Just For A Minute!!!!

Darlings, with all having been and still co

ntinuuing to be written about the TV show "Cold Case" since 2003, I cannot believe more has not been written on the episode from Season 2 called "Wishing." I viewed it recently and found it as haunting and painful to watch as the first time. What gets one through it is the craftsmanship and the brilliant acting. But it is one of the most heartbreaking stories dramatized--and an effecitve reworking of the John Steinbeck classic "Of Mice and Men."

Here, as best as I can recount, is the story.

Damien Midkiff, in a brilliant, star making performance, plays Colin Miller, a teenager with special needs. He is physically developed, but underdeveloped mentally, the latter putting him somewhere between 6 and 8. Colin is in a bad way, and does not know it. His mother, Sarah, a woman in her early 40s, is dying of cancer. His friend and caregiver, Nathan Hicks, loves Colin, and wants the best for him. They both do, especially in the wake of Colin's father having abandoned them when found he sired a special needs child.

Colin, like most teenagers, has a crush on a classmate, Lydia. Unfortunately, this has tragic consequences. In a tender scene alone with him, she allows Colin to kiss him. But when discovered by the more popular kids she covers up by saying she was attacked, slapping Colin with a sexual assault charge. On the day in question, March 6, 1993, Colin and Nathan were scheduled to attend a screening of "Jurassic Park." They did, but something happened later. That evening Colin was found dead by the train tracks, having been run over by an oncoming train. It was presumed an accident.

A makeshift memorial is created at the death site, and each year people leave things at it.
Eventually, someone leaves drawings of the train incident, suggesting that what happened to Colin was not exactly accidental. Lily and Company investigate, and discover that following the incident with Lydia, Colin was placed in a facility for violent patients, while his mother was hospitalized. Nathan visits him, and wants to be Colin's guardian, but the system will not let a minor act as such to a teen on a sexual assault charge. Sarah comes home, where she dies, to Colin's unawareness. Lydia stops by and discovers the dead Sarah and calls 911.

Things point to Nathan as the primary suspect. Under questioning, he admits he and Sarah had discussed what might become of Colin were they not available, and it was not good. Nathan makes an irrevocable decision. While walking home from the film, he leads Colin onto the train tracks and asks him to "wish" his mother well. Colin does with all the hopefulness he can muster, and before Nathan's eyes is struck down by the train. Though under the guise of a mercy killing, Nathan is arrested and imprisoned, his punishment of having to live with the decsion he made his entire life worse than anything he will have to face in prison.

This is one of this show's most disturbing episodes. It cries out for tolerance towards the Colins of this world and shows the system does not always know best about who should be cared for. I could never have made the decision Nathan did. Colin should have been facilitated till Nathan reached majority, when he could take care of him, thereby giving him a chance at life that Nathan denied him.

So, darlings, I urge you to see this episode of "Cold Case." And the next time you encoutner a Colin, be a little more patient. They do not deserve to have the decision made for them that Nathan did.

That is enough for today, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!