April 10--Tucked onto a residential stretch of Fairfield Avenue on Chicago's North Side, a few steps from the delightful bustle of Devon Avenue, sits Well of Mercy, Mary Zeien's denouement.
"It's always been on my heart to do something for pregnant women," Zeien told me. "I decided I needed to open this place or go to my grave wishing I had."
Well of Mercy is a home for women and their children when they need one most -- when they've been abused, when they've been abandoned, when they're broke and broken.
"One girl called me from Alabama," Zeien said. "Her mother had schizophrenia. She got on a bus and I picked her up at 4:30 in the morning. She didn't know who she was getting in the car with. That just speaks to their desperation."
And to Zeien's devotion.
Five years ago, with a master's degree in social work and her life savings in hand, Zeien opened Well of Mercy in the former convent at St. Timothy Parish, owned now by the Jewish Federation.
"I was in here a week, washing the walls, when I got a call from someone who had six kids," Zeien said. "I said, 'If you want to wash the walls with me, you can have a home.'"
Thirteen women, ranging in age from 19 to their early 30s, now live in the three-story, sunlit facility with their children. They're mostly referred to Zeien through Catholic Charities, hospitals, shelters and other social service agencies.
"They have daily chores and weekly chores," Zeien said. "They do the shopping for the house, prepare the meals, watch each other's children. Five of the women are in college."
Zeien gives them a home for five years, during which time they receive job training, spiritual guidance, nutritional training, parental coaching and psychotherapy.
"We help them heal from their past wounds so they can live in the present and have a better future," Zeien said. "We help them figure out what they'd like to become and guide that process."
Along the way, they gain a family.
"I come in at 9 in the morning and Mary's often returning from an all-nighter at the hospital," said Gay Meier, a full-time volunteer at Well of Mercy. "A baby was having seizures or a mom had gone into labor. She's their advocate, and they've never had one."
"Most of these women haven't had mothers," Zeien acknowledges. "So that's probably the most important job I do. I become their mother."
Keaundrai, 32, arrived at Well of Mercy two years ago with a teenage daughter, a 4-year-old son and another baby on the way.
"I thank God for this place," she told me. "My mother was on drugs, so we kind of moved from here to there -- North Side, South Side, West Side, suburbs. If it weren't for Mary, God knows where I'd be."
Keaundrai is training to become a court reporter and her daughter is playing varsity softball, singing in a local choir program and earning all A's and B's, Zeien said.
"I've seen the cycle of poverty breaking over and over," Meier told me. "The difference in the women and their kids -- it's just so worthwhile."
In addition to the physical protection of a stable, safe home, Well of Mercy surrounds its residents with a sense of hope.
"The kids are all so friendly," Zeien told me. "There'll be men here doing some renovations or repairs, and the kids will get them playing catch in the hallway. They engage anyone who comes by."
I met Keaundrai's youngest son when Zeien gave me a tour of the building. He had just celebrated his second birthday and was proud to show off the Disney Cars sippy cup he received as a gift.
I asked Zeien what she wishes most fondly for her surrogate family -- her adopted daughters and their beautiful children, whose lives are shaped and buoyed so profoundly by her presence.
"My prayer is that we all come to understand the integrity of the human being and the dignity that each of us has and treat each other with respect," Zeien said. "I see miracles all the time."
hstevens@tribpub.com
