Sad ending to story about a man and his cat

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/02/2012 (4965 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

You might recall the moving story of Gary Claeys and the remarkable bond he had with a pal named Papa.

Linda Slobodian, a neighbour from the southwestern Manitoba community of Deloraine who befriended Gary, shared the first instalment in an in email late last November.

She introduced the story this way:

“It involves the bond between an eccentric — definitely ostracized and sometimes bullied — 64-year-old man named Gary and a wild cat that he tamed.”

A feral cat Gary named Papa.

Linda, who’s a former journalist, went on to explain that on a Sunday in early October, a mental-health caregiver who works for the Assiniboine Regional Health Authority had the cat removed from the house trailer Gary calls home and relocated to a farm about 20 kilometres away.

The so-called mental-health caregiver had arbitrarily decided Gary was in breach of a town bylaw that only allows two cats and a dog in a residence.

Papa was the third cat.

“Losing the cat disturbed Gary deeply,” Linda wrote at the time.

But just over a month later, on Remembrance Day, something unforgettable happened.

Gary heard scratching at the door of his mobile home, and there was Papa.

The feral cat Gary had “tamed” had made the 20-kilometre trek back home to be with him.

“In the two years that I’ve known him,” Linda recalled, “I’ve never seen Gary so happy.”

But Linda still was concerned.

She was afraid that when the so-called caregiver found out the cat was back, Papa would be sent away again.

“Gordon,” Linda wrote, “I know it is just a lonely man and his cat, but sometimes a cat is almost all a man has to love him.”

So I called the caregiver on her mobile phone. I asked her why she had felt so compelled to take the cat away from Gary in the first place.

“The cat is not his,” she hissed. “It’s a stray.”

Then she cited the two-cat bylaw in Deloraine.

Later, after I spoke with the Assiniboine Regional Health Authority — and Linda formally complained about what she cited as the caregiver’s “unprofessional” and “disturbing” conduct — the woman was removed from her duties with Gary.

But only temporarily.

Earlier, the caregiver had been instructed not to remove Papa again.

Unless a bylaw officer intervened, Papa was free to stay.

Free Press readers responded to the story by sending cards and letters of support to Gary. And Darcy’s A.R.C., the Winnipeg no-kill animal rescue shelter, responded by paying for Papa to be neutered.

The last time I spoke with Gary, in early December, he expressed his gratitude and delightedly described how, at that very moment, Papa was rubbing up against his leg.

Just over two months passed.

In the meantime, Gary was still receiving notes from Free Press readers and, as recently as Valentine’s Day, a classroom of kids sent him a bundle of cards.

But then, on Monday, Linda emailed a disturbing update.

“Just thought I’d let you know that Papa went missing about two weeks ago.”

That was odd, Linda observed, because he never strayed far from Gary’s trailer.

Apparently he hadn’t this time, either, which is what really caused Linda to contact me again about Papa.

“Yesterday, I found him dead in my yard.”

She said there were no visible signs of trauma or bleeding.

“Gary is very sad.”

Of course, given how and where he was found, if Papa had been a person, there would have been an autopsy.

Linda wants one anyway.

And, given the circumstances, if Papa had been a person, there’s something else that would have happened.

Police would have called Papa’s death “suspicious.”

Hopefully, if an autopsy is performed on Papa, it will tell us he died a natural death.

Hopefully, Gary also will find solace in Linda’s final words.

“At least Papa and Gary were happy for a while.”

gordon.sinclair@freepress.mb.ca