Mother octopus

I’ve just read a very sad chapter in The Soul of an Octopus. 
Female octopuses die a few months after laying their eggs—they spend all energy caring for and cleaning the eggs, and at some point, stop feeding, and slowly die. 
At the aquarium that Sy Montgomery visits for The Soul of an Octopus, the octopus Octavia lays eggs, and starts dying. 

“Octavia is puffed up, her skin not, as usual, creased or crinkled, thorny or warty, but smooth as a blown-up balloon. 
This looks decidedly wrong to me, like a giant tumor or an internal organ bloated with disease. My distress increases when I can’t see her gills, her funnel, or her eyes. She has turned her face to the wall, as a dog or cat often does when suffering.” (p.111, ch.4) 

Octavia changes colour, and devotes all the time and energy to caring for the eggs. She loses interest in interaction with people at the aquarium. Nothing else matters but the eggs. 
The sad part is that her eggs are not fertile. 

“… we watch Octavia, our alien, invertebrate friend, caring for her infertile eggs at the end of her life with a tenacity and tenderness at once heartbreaking and glorious.” (p.118, ch.4) 

“Though Octavia’s eggs will never hatch, it fills us with gratitude that Octavia tends them with diligence and grace. For when she dies, Octavia will do so in the act of loving as only a mature female octopus, at the end of her short, strange life, can love.” (p.119, ch.4) 

This is heartbreaking.