Social - August 2003

Traumatic experience yields first publication

By DIANE TURBYFILL, LTN Staff Writer

Christine Bess is a pillar of strength in her family.

She can hold herself together in times of stress. But when she feels her emotions overwhelm her, she pours them onto paper.

“The more I write, the more pressure gets off of me,” she says.

Bess has collected her thoughts into a short story that will be released today. The title of her first publication is “Better Than Blessed: Three Hearts to Live Again.”

Bess was first inspired to begin the book while facing her son’s first heart transplant.

“My husband and I were walking up the hall in Carolinas Medical Center, and it hit me,” she says.

The feeling was so overwhelming that Bess stopped at the nurses station and asked for three sheets of paper and a pencil. Hundreds of sheets of paper and two heart transplants later, “Better Than Blessed” was ready for print.

Bess’s 32-year-old son Kendall Bryant received two new hearts in 2001. Everything went like clockwork with his first transplant in June, until Bryant’s body rejected the heart. Bryant had another heart transplant in November.

Bryant’s third heart has been treating him well. He has to take numerous medications and has limited physical activities, but his mother is just happy he is alive.

Her faith, feelings and gratitude are expressed in the 56-page short story.

“I just really can’t read it without shedding a tear,” she says.

Bess says the experience helped her discover a new gift — writing.

“I never thought I could do it,” she says.

Now it seems she can’t stop.

Bess says when the urge to write comes over her, she has to grab a pen and start writing right away. Pieces of paper are piled on her desk at work, in her car and on her bedside table.

“Sometimes I will get up at night or at one or two in the morning and write,” she says. “I have paper all over my house.”

Bess has already completed an unpublished story about the death of her mother and plans to keep writing.

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Christine Bess will have a book signing luncheon Saturday, Aug. 16 at 4 p.m. at Buffalo Shoals Clubhouse. Tickets are $12 each. Cost includes a copy of the book.

© 2001 Lincoln Times-News  

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