Shelly Mecum had long had a dream of writing a children's picture book.

But even as a woman of faith, she could not have predicted the "miracles" or the life-changing relationship that would result in the fulfillment of that dream, a little book called "The Watercolor Cat" (Mutual Publishing, $14.95).

Now a teacher at Holy Trinity School in East O'ahu, Mecum is the author of the national bestseller "God's Photo Album" (HarperCollins, 2001), in which children with cameras and notebooks went looking for God. She was pondering the long put-off picture book project when she met a friend of Nu'uanu artist Peggy Chun. The woman suggested there might be an inspiring children's tale in the watercolorist's life.

Chun, one of the best-known and most beloved chroniclers of Island scenes, has ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gherig's disease). Since 2002, Chun has continued to paint, preside at the center of a wide circle of friends and launch new artistic projects even as she has lost use of her legs, hands and now even the muscles that control her eyelids.

Mecum didn't see how such tragedy could be turned into a picture book, but she's a believer in divine "assignments" and sensed this might be one. So she went to meet Chun, then in a wheelchair and one-handed, having lost the use of her formerly dominant right hand.

"I thought I was going to meet Peggy the brokenhearted artist. Instead, the first thing she said was, 'Did you see? Did you see my latest painting? I made it with my left hand,' " Mecum recalled.

Then, in a gesture that launched an admiration so deep Mecum tears up when she talks about it, Chun kissed her own left arm, hand to shoulder, exclaiming, "I love this arm! I love this arm!" Recalled Mecum: "In that moment, I really loved Peggy Chun. I've never met anyone who could embrace adversity with so much joy."

During that visit, Mecum also met Chun's much-loved "muse," Sara, a black cat known among Chun's artist friends as Boo. Chun jokes that there is cat hair embedded in most of her originals, because if she ignored Boo when she was hard at work, the persistent feline would just walk across her painting.

It would be a long road to completion of the book — three years.

"At first, I couldn't see my way through it, how to write this for children," Mecum said.

For one thing, "Peggy is a rock star. There are so many people in and out of there (including the 100 or so members of Peg's Legs, friends who volunteer to care for Chun), how would you ever get even a minute alone to talk to her?"

That first day, Mecum went for a long walk. The Roman Catholic prayed for guidance. It came: "Let the cat tell the story."

Mecum spent the better part of 2005 as a member of Peg's Legs, to get to know Chun and the household better.

WHAT SHE LEARNED

"Peggy has really recognized how extraordinary life is," said Mecum. "Not only every day, but every breath is so precious — even if it's taken through a ventilator. So she's on a ventilator? She's just so thankful that there is such a machine. People's lives change if they meet Peggy for a moment. Imagine how much my DNA has changed spending maybe 70 hours a week with her for a whole year."

But still, the story didn't come. "I felt a clock ticking. Truly, that clock is ticking for all of us, but for Peggy, it's just a little bit louder," said Mecum.

One day, after Chun had shown Mecum her portrait of Blessed Mother Marianne Cope, the nun known for her work among Hansen's disease patients at Kalaupapa, Mecum said this prayer to Cope for intercession: "Please, let me paint as beautiful a picture of Peggy with words as she has made of you with paints."

"The very next day, the storyline came ... and it would not be Peggy, not Peg's Legs, not the whole life in the household, but Peggy's refusal to quit painting."

This gave her the refrain that runs through the book, the sort of rhythmic repetition that children love: "And she painted ... and painted ... and painted ... and painted."

Recently, Mecum addressed several hundred grade schoolers with the message of "The Watercolor Cat": "Life is really tough. Terrible things can happen. There could be a shower of terrible things. But there really isn't any reason to give up. Find something — painting or writing or whatever — to keep that joy factor, that passion for life. We just gotta keep painting, whatever painting means to us."

Mecum noted that it wasn't difficult for the children to accept the message.

Her work as a teacher has convinced her that life is getting more rushed, difficult and painful for children. To cope with this, Chun can be an inspiration, just as Chun's friend suggested.

"Being brave doesn't mean she's fearless," said Mecum. "She has tremendous fear, but it's what she does with it. She believes that if you can put yourself in the moment, the actual moment, anything is bearable."

Reach Wanda A. Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.