How To Be A Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals

by Sy Montgomery

But eggs fertile or no, Octavia’s devotion to them was profoundly beautiful. In each caress, each cleaning, each hour of steadfast protection of this mother’s eggs, I could see the ancient shape of life’s first love. Thousands of billions of mothers—from the gelatinous ancestors of Octavia, to my own mother—have taught their kind to love, and to know that love is the highest and best use of a life. Love alone matters, and makes its object worthy. And love is a living thing, even if Octavia’s eggs were not. Molly. Christopher. Tess . . . all were no longer living, yet I loved them no less. And, I realized, too soon, Octavia herself would be no more. But love never dies, and love always matters. And so it still fills me with gratitude that Octavia tended her eggs with such diligence and grace. For I could face the inevitable fact of her dying with the knowledge that she would do so in the act of loving, as only a mature female octopus at the end of her short, strange life can love.