Road to Mecca

The Road to Mecca examines the bio-psycho-social systems and issues that are part of the aging process. There are many issues introduced that are useful in understanding the social workers role in evaluating and developing a plan of care for young adults through late adulthood development. Since the passing of her husband, Helen has devoted her time to creating and transforming her home into her own “Mecca” of beauty and freedom. The dozens of sculptures of wise men, mermaids and other figures inside and outside of her home has secluded Helen from her neighbors who are very rigid white Calvinists. Her neighbors are trying to get rid of Helen by encouraging her to move into a local old folk’s home because of her eccentric work of art surrounding her home and because they fear for Helen’s safety living alone, now that she is in late adulthood and recently almost burnt her house down. Elsa is a young career minded woman who has befriended Helen and the only person that respects and accepts Helen’s work and interest. Throughout this play there are many psychoanalytic themes such as love, abandonment, dependency and loss to name a few. Both Helen and Elsa appeared to have grown up with a sense of abandonment and lack of trust from their families and others. Before the death of Helen’s husband, she lived as a conventional member of society. After becoming a widow, she began expressing herself in an artistic way and displaying her creativity throughout her house. Now that she is in late adulthood and becoming gradually unable to manage on her own as she use to, her sense of creativity seems at an end and she finds herself faced with a sense of darkness and hopelessness that at times overwhelms her. Helen discusses that when she was a child her mother would take away her candle at night; to be in pure darkness as a child was frightening for her and when her mother took away the candle, she took away Helen’s only source of comfort. That fear of darkness transformed into