Transcendent Kingdom

In Chapter 12, Gifty, aged three, and her family attend the funeral of Gifty’s mother’s erstwhile employer and the man she looked after, Mr. Thomas. Mr. Thomas’s daughter is “stone faced, staring at her father in his casket with an unmistakable look of contempt” (82). She then comes over to apologize that their family had to put up with him. This comment provokes Gifty’s mother to get out of the car on the way home and pray for the soul of the woman who “spoke ill of her father” (83).

On one level, Gifty’s mother’s reaction stems from mere superstition. One should not speak ill of the dead, regardless of who they are. As such, praying is necessary to obviate any potential curse. On another level, though, Gifty’s mother agitation and action in relation to Mr. Thomas’s daughter betrays something deeper—namely, that she believes one has an unconditional duty to respect and honor parents and elders whatever they may or may not have done. It is a sense of obligation, further, that Gifty’s mother fears is being compromised by their life in America.

At the same time, such an attitude is a source of tension for Gifty. In the funeral incident and at other times, she is persistently reminded of the commandment to “honor thy father and thy mother,” and especially not to criticize them, yet her parents’ behavior often makes this hard. As she says of her father, he “went back to Ghana in such a cowardly way, leaving his two children and wife alone to navigate a difficult country” (101). Her father abandons them when they need him most. Worse, he lies about leaving, constantly leading them to believe that he will be returning. His actions not only hurt and damage their family in the short term, but also leave deep psychological wounds that help contribute to both Nana’s addiction and their mother’s breakdown.

While Gifty’s mother is more sympathetic than Gifty’s father, her behavior towards Gifty as a child often straddles the line between matter-of-fact coldness and cruelty. No more so is this apparent than in the comparisons she makes between Nana and her daughter. Nana is the golden boy who can do no wrong, and for whose sake she emigrated to a new continent. In contrast, Gifty, even at the best of times, is an afterthought. This contrast is reflected in her differing attitudes towards her pregnancies with Gifty and Nana. Nana is proclaimed as a divine blessing, “the first miracle, the true miracle” (65), while Gifty’s mother never tires of telling Gifty, “You weren’t a very good baby” (65). The story of the pain and misery involved in her delivery seems a proxy for the more basic truth that Gifty is an inconvenience. Indeed, later in the book, this is precisely what her mother tells her. After Nana’s death, and unhinged by the sleeping pill Ambien, she openly tells Gifty that she only wanted Nana.

Further, this favoritism does not end with Nana’s demise. Their mother’s depression imposes a cruel toll on young Gifty. While processing the loss of her brother, she essentially loses her mother as well, and she is co-opted into being her mother’s de-facto carer. Worse, the continued depression reveals and crystallizes her mother’s preference for Nana and her disinterest in Gifty. With Nana gone, for her mother, there is nothing worth living for, and no point in getting out of bed. The life or achievements of her daughter carry no significance and offer no solace. Looking after Gifty and, by extension, herself, is relegated to a residual moral obligation that neither literally nor metaphorically moves her.

This remains true years later. Even after Gifty has graduated from Harvard and started a PhD at Stanford, her mother exhibits little interest in her or her work. When Gifty invites her to stay with her in her final PhD year, her mother remains resolutely bed bound and even deliberately turns her back to face away from her. Like the “Still Face Experiment” (72), in which mothers deliberately present an expressionless face to their babies, the turned back of Gifty’s mother symbolizes an unwillingness to become involved in her life, or to confront their relationship. Instead, she stays backward facing, locked in her depression and the trauma of Nana and the past. In this context, Gifty’s defense of her mother on the grounds that her depression is a “disease” becomes problematic. While, of course, depression is a genuine condition, Gifty’s excusing her mother’s behavior may be a way to evade a more troubling truth about her mother’s failed responsibility to care for her.