The Compassion of Giants
My mom and I stood at the ship’s bow, braced against the chop. It was July, but a cold wind was ripping through Monterey Bay. Perfect weather, our tour guide assured us. My family was on vacation in California, and we were on a mission to see one thing—humpback whales. My mom, a pharmacist, studied marine biology in college. She’d been itching to go whale watching ever since. Now that we were on the boat, she could barely sit still. “I just love whales,” she said. “They’re so majestic.”
My mom isn’t alone in her love of those creatures. Whales have long fascinated
