Aurora's babies

Aurora is a four-year old octopus. Last year, she met J1 a male octopus.
They liked each other almost immediately and they courted each other.
Octopi flash colors when they are courting and it must have been quite a show.
They went into hiding and mated.

Four weeks later, Aurora laid tens of thousands of eggs.
She was a good Mommy.
She washed her eggs daily and fought off sea stars and sea cucumbers
who wanted nothing more than to devour her eggs.

The aquarium staff in Anchorage gave up on her young.
There were no obvious signs of life in her eggs.
The staff thought that the eggs were sterile...apparently Aurora was past her prime.
but Aurora continued to wash and mother her eggs;
meanwhile, the aquarium staff began draining her pool.

The eggs were exposed and drying,
but Aurora found a way to squirt water up to them
and wash them all the same.
Aurora loved her family; she continued to tend her eggs.
Lo and behold! A miracle.

An INTERN at the aquarium noticed a dark spot in some of the drying eggs.
She asked about it...
EYES!! The eggs were alive.
Today, Aurora's patience and love paid off.
At the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward,
Little Octopi are hatching.
Aurora is a mommy.

She continues to tend to the unhatched eggs.
Washing them carefully and defending them from predators.
Aurora is in love.
Alas, she is going to die now...it is nature's way,
but in the tens of thousands of eggs, surely there is another like Aurora.
A Mommy who will find a way to tend her young
even when science tells us to let them go.

We are not God.