When You Remember Me

A made-for-TV movie (first aired October 7, 1990 on ABC) based on the life of Michael Patrick Smith, a young man with muscular dystrophy who died October 1, 1975 in a Denver nursing home. When Smith died at the age of 21, he left behind him a lawsuit against the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the state of Colorado, and Heritage House Nursing Homes which said that the nursing home, the state, and the federal government were failing to ensure that those in nursing homes received the financial and emotional support to which they were entitled. This suit, Estate of Smith v. O'Halloran (Thomas J. O'Halloran being the administrator of Heritage House Nursing Care Center), led to improved treatment for nursing home patients across the country.

In the movie, Fred Savage plays Mike Mills, a teen with muscular dystrophy who is placed in a nursing home by his broke mother. Once there, he has to deal with his illness, being the only young person in the nursing home, and the abusive Nurse Cooder (played by Ellen Burstyn), who flays him verbally, drugs him, and eventually subjects him to solitary confinement. Meanwhile, Wade Blank founds American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT).

The title of the TV-movie comes from a line in the script: ''When you remember me. Think about the ocean, fields and mountains. Think about the wind and you'll know that I'm free.''


 * Based on a True Story: As mentioned above.
 * Battleaxe Nurse: Nurse Cooder.
 * Good Lawyers, Good Clients: Legal Aid literally saves the day for Mike.
 * Ill Boy: Subverted in that Mike and those around him know what he has. Spot-on in that, with proper care, he wouldn't die that young.
 * Perpetual Poverty: Mike's mom literally cannot afford to take care of him. This also affects what hospital/nursing home will accept him; not all take charity patients.
 * There Should Be a Law: Basically, Michael Patrick Smith's/Mike Mills' most heartfelt belief -- that there should be a law holding nursing homes, states and the federal government to a decent standard of care that acknowledged that their patients were people with human rights.