As a child, curious as the questions he puts to the adults, I asked Misra if a dead woman, that is my mother, could've given birth to a living thing like me. “You were born early in the evening,” Misra said, “sharing a moment’s life with a falling star. You were cast into darkness, both of you, although the star dropped into extinction while you existed in the dark. No. You didn’t kill your mother.” She concluded her remarks and again held me closer to herself. “Besides, your mother breast-fed you and that, for me, is the reason why you wouldn’t take to other women’s milk, wet-nurses who offered to help. Your mother, how could she breast-feed you unless she survived giving birth to you—tell me, how?”

Nuruddin Farah, Maps, loc. 52353