We weren’t supposed to be a cat family. Before getting married I told my future wife that I never wanted a cat, that I’m extremely allergic to cats, that a cat would leave traces of cat hair and urine throughout our house. A month into our marriage we had a cat.
We misguidedly let our 3-year-old son name our cat and he joyfully proclaimed that we would call her “Booger.” I immediately had the thought that “Moco,” or booger in Spanish, sounded a lot better. I thought it maybe exuded more of a coffee shop feel because of its proximity to “mocha.” After a small amount of coaxing we were able to get him to agree to the suggestion.
Moco has been a part of our family now for sixteen years and I’ve officially become a cat person. But really, Moco had me converted during her first year with us. The epitome of a “curious cat” and a “scaredy cat,” Moco is easy to love, her Garfield-face always looking back at you judgingly.
Moco recently inspired me to start a list of things you should never do. The first thing:
- Don’t hug your cat and then go change a record.
Moco is on my mind because this past Sunday we said goodbye to her. My wife and I are moving out of the country and made the difficult decision to not take her with us. Fortunately we were able to find her an amazing family to stay with while we’ll be gone the next two years. So it’s not goodbye goodbye. Still, saying goodbye to her was hard. She’s getting older and we don’t know if we’ll see her again.
I’m not sure why but I’ve had Billy Joel on the mind too. It might have to do with a comment a middle school teacher friend of mine made a few weekends ago. He was talking about unexpected things students say and recounted a first day of school scenario in which he asked a student, “How was your summer?” The student responded, “You know? This summer I really got into Billy Joel.”
So shortly after we said goodby to Moco, the following Billy Joel song popped into my head:
Goodbye Moco, goodbye my baby.
