{"id":38236,"date":"2025-11-25T21:46:41","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T03:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=38236"},"modified":"2025-11-25T22:42:49","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T04:42:49","slug":"my-need-to-rescue-my-child-self-fuels-my-urge-to-rescue-animals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=38236","title":{"rendered":"My need to rescue my child self fuels my urge to rescue animals"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It was three years ago tonight when I first got close enough to photograph a small cat who I now call Alex.<\/p>\n

For weeks, I had been trying to get close to a tiny feline \u2014 maybe 4 months old \u2014 who was living behind the garbage dumpster at a restaurant where I used to go. He had been scared enough to get away from everyone who had tried to catch him.<\/p>\n

He seemed to spend much of his time in the relative safety of the drainage system at the end of the parking lot. Every time I got close to him, he would dart into an opening and disappear. On this night, I got close enough to take the picture you see above, but when I got any closer, he was gone like a shot.<\/p>\n

A friend eventually insisted that I use a trap to capture him. I kept trying to do it my way, but he kept escaping. Finally, my friend bought a trap for me and insisted I try it. And she was right.<\/p>\n

I caught the little guy. He was terrified, but he quickly learned to trust me. He had a huge personality, so I named him Alexander the Great. Alex for short. Today, he\u2019s the senior of the three current cats in my home.<\/p>\n

But just as importantly, he\u2019s one more of a long line of cats and dogs who let me feel as though I\u2019m rescuing creatures in the same way that I wish someone could have rescued me when I was a child.<\/p>\n

I didn’t grow up with animals, so I had no idea they could ever be so important to me. But after the very first rescue cat came into my life, I felt as though I couldn’t live without them. I never went looking for the cats and dogs I ended up with. They always found me when they needed a home.<\/p>\n

For years, I didn’t understand that the story was any deeper than that. I thought I just loved these felines and canines who came into my life. But it finally hit me that it was more than that. Every time I rescued a cat or a dog from a terrible life, something inside me felt as though I was doing something more important.<\/p>\n

Somehow, it seemed as though I was looking back to the small and scared child who I was many years ago — and I was saying, “If I could go back in time and save you, too, I would.”<\/p>\n

The reality is that there’s nothing I can do to change the family dysfunction that I went through. My narcissistic father pushed my mother to a mental breakdown that took her away from me at an early age. I’ve talked about this many times, so you might know the story if you’ve been here before.<\/p>\n

It’s also a reality that I can’t save every animal that needs a home. I try, but I’m overwhelmed by how many there are. I feel the same way about children who are in terrible situations. I can’t really rescue kids from bad homes, but my feelings about them are the same as my emotions when I see a starving kitten running into a drain grate.<\/p>\n

There is so much suffering in the world that it upsets me that I can’t fix it all. I want to stop the pain and suffering and emotional anguish, but I can’t.<\/p>\n

And I think that’s why rescuing animals matters so much to me. It’s just a tiny thing I can do — something concrete and realistic — that allows me to say, “I can\u2019t fix the world, but I can make this one life safer. I can make this tiny corner of the world a little less painful.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Alex has no idea what he represents to me. He’s just a sweet little guy who loves having a home that’s warm and dry. It’s the same for my other two cats, Oliver and Sam. I was the same for Lucy before she died a few weeks ago. For all of them, it’s just a practical matter of having a safe and loving home with plenty of food.<\/p>\n

But for me, it\u2019s always about a little boy named David who didn\u2019t have anybody to rescue him. I can’t change that past, but I can at least make myself believe that I’m doing something — in a small way — that I wish someone had done for me.<\/p>\n

Note:<\/strong> The photos below are very recent pictures of Alex lording over his kingdom like the little conqueror he is.<\/em><\/p>\n

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It was three years ago tonight when I first got close enough to photograph a small cat who I now call Alex. For weeks, I had been trying to get close to a tiny feline \u2014 maybe 4 months old \u2014 who was living behind the garbage dumpster at a restaurant where I used to Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-9WI","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38236"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38262,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38236\/revisions\/38262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}