BUNKER HILL — After 23 years of suffering from a bad heart, Mary Beth Fites finally got a new one. While her story had a happy ending, she was well aware that the story of a 19-year-old male did not end so happily.

At the end of the 76 days she spent in the hospital, first waiting on and then receiving her new heart, Fites was searching for a way to explain her gift to her grandchildren. They had known something was wrong with grandma, when she could no longer run and play with them like she did before. Now it had been more the two weeks since she was able to see them and it would be more than two weeks more before they were able to visit.

“I was thinking about my grandkids so much,” she said. “I hadn’t seen them since the transplant because they were all sick with one thing or another. And I wondered what they would think or if they would understand I have someone else’s heart and how it all works.”

Fites wanted to use just the right words to tell her story of gifts and sacrifice. Being familiar with working with children through church, she said she could relate well to kids.

On her last day in the hospital, Oct. 26, 2008, she felt God speak to her and she began writing a story. It was a story of the changes she had experienced as witnessed through the eyes of her grandchildren. The title of her story became: “Race Me Grandma.”

But she didn’t just stop there. She decided it had to go further. She wanted to find someone to illustrate her story and to turn it into a children’s book.

Fites’ heart problems began at age 30. She was told eventually she would be a heart transplant candidate.

“That was the first thing [the doctor] told me.”

She was a victim of hypetrophic cardiomyopathy, a condition where the muscles in her heart would thicken and harden through time. She had her first open-heart surgery in 1995 when doctors cut away some of the thicker part of her heart, and her second open-heart surgery in 2001 for a valve replacement. And then on June 21, 2008, just two weeks after she went on medical disability leave, doctors put her on the heart transplant list.

“I knew in my mind that [the heart transplant] was a possibility, but I never dreamed it would happen, until one day the doctor said, ‘This is it. You’re going on the [transplant] list,’” Fites said.

Fites was hospitalized Aug. 12 and word came on Oct. 13 she was going to receive her new heart.

Since August 1999, Fites has worked at the Miami Correctional Facility. She was hired as an account clerk working with the offender trust.

“My job consists of working with 3,000-plus offender accounts. I mainly debit their accounts for court payments, child support, postage, and remittance slips requesting funds be sent from their account for family support, outside purchases or donations. Checks are processed for each of these. I set up outside savings accounts and CDs for offenders to help them get ready for when they are released and out on their own. There are also numerous special projects I get to work on that keep my days full.”

While she doesn’t work directly with the offenders, she is quite familiar with the artistic ability of many of the men incarcerated at the prison.

But Fites didn’t think of the offenders immediately. First she looked into having her story professionally illustrated through a publishing house. She decided that was not financially feasible.

“I kept trying to draw it myself, but that was not happening,” she said with a laugh. And then her thoughts turned towards the many offenders at the Miami Correctional Facility.

After asking around, she came up with some offenders involved in the Purposeful Living Units Serve, or PLUS, program. The offenders in this program are required to provide 320 hours of community service in order to complete the program. With a request to the superintendent and the administration in the central office of the Indiana Department of Correction, it was agreed the offenders could illustrate the book as long as they didn’t profit financially.

Four men were selected and two, Jeffrey Wines and Nicholas Liss, actually came through with a complete set of illustrations. To inspire them, Fites wrote down a few things she envisioned for the illustrations, but told them to use their own visions, too.

The two books turned out differently, with one using a traditional white-haired plump grandmother and the other taking a more modern approach, making Fites more of a “super grandma” with large muscles. The two used their own art supplies and each worked between 60 and 70 hours, taking three to four weeks to complete the book.

“They brought the words alive,” Fites said of the colorfully illustrated books.

She has been able to get the first one printed, but is still waiting for funding to print the second one illustrated by Liss.

“I cried,” Fites said of the books when she first saw them. “It just brought it all to life. And everyone in the business office cried when they read it too. They were all looking over my shoulder reading it when it came out.”

The book has given the men an enormous sense of accomplishment seeing their work in print.

“When I started drawing [15 years ago], I couldn’t draw a stick man with a ruler,” said Wines, who learned to draw by necessity, as a way to survive in prison and help time pass.

Wines also illustrates greeting cards and envelopes.

“An artist lives for this. He wants to have his work seen by others,” he said of the book.

Liss added that the project will be good for future business when he gets out.

“When someone asks if I’ve ever illustrated a book, I can say yes. And it was done for a good cause, too,” he added of the profits from the book going to St. Vincent’s Sharing Hearts.

“We’re not all monsters,” Wines added of the offender population. “We’re just trying to do some good things too.”

Wines said he connected with Fites’ story in his own situation.

“What I’m going through right now in prison, I know what it’s like to be away from home and my family,” he said.

Once illustrated, Fites used her own money to have the one book printed. She was able to print 100 books for $800 and has had a second printing of that book.

The transplant team at St. Vincent’s is researching into how best to use the book as a teaching tool for children and family members, Fites said. They are also looking into grants to help her publish the second illustrated book.

The book is being sold by request at this time, Fites said.

“If someone wants one, they contact me. Word of mouth has spread and the first 100 copies were gone in two and half weeks. I had another 100 printed and 49 of those are spoken for. God has really blessed this endeavor.

“The book is based on my life with my grandchildren before and after the transplant. Not only did I want children to understand about transplants, I wanted to let others know how God can and does work in your life,” Fites emphasized.

“He allowed me the peace that passes understanding that the Bible talks about. How can a person sit and wait for someone else to die so that they can live, or know that maybe there never will be a heart that is right. You have to be prepared either way. That is not always easy to wrap your mind around. I always said that I couldn’t lose. If I lived wonderful, but if no heart was available and I died, then what better thing than to be in heaven with Jesus. There is no way I could have gone through this experience without Him.”

• Ann Hubbard is the public information officer at the Miami Correctional Facility. She can be reached at (765) 689-8920, Ext. 5536.