Leaving Time

by Jodi Picoult

The moral of this story is that no matter how much we try, no matter how much we want it … some stories just don’t have a happy ending.

I would argue that there is a special empathy elephants have for mothers and children—either their own species’s or another’s. That relationship seems to hold a precious significance and a bittersweet knowledge: An elephant seems to understand that if you lose a baby, you suffer.