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“He told me he put the frying pan on the stove then he sat down for a few moments and fell asleep,” Smith said. “He woke up just as the last bird let out a screech and fell dead. The others were already dead in the bottom of their cages.

“I think he died of a broken heart. It was like running over your kid. Those parrots were his children. You never get over that.”

Friends rallied to replace the parrots — his brother, Brian, had even arranged to buy two new birds from a woman in Stittsville — but Garry refused. He needed time to grieve.

“He said no, he didn’t want them,” Smith said. “Did the guy know he was leaving this world? I don’t mean to be some psychic guru cuckoo here — but you know what I mean?”

Photo by Kier Gilmour / The Ottawa Citizen

Garry Wayne Allen was born March 23, 1952, the 10th of 11 children. The family lived on Pretoria Avenue and it was clear early on that Garry had a way with animals, said brother Brian Allen, a retired Ottawa police officer. He remembers Garry nursing a crow with an injured wing back to health. Even after it could fly, the bird never strayed far. “That bird wouldn’t leave him,” Brian said.

Garry started taking in unwanted parrots and seemed to have a natural gift.

“His birds were his life,” Brian said. “They gave him peace and tranquility and companionship.”

Allen worked for the city for a time, driving a boiler truck to thaw fire hydrants in winter and painting street lines in the summer, but quit a decade or so ago in an ill-conceived plan to become a health food salesman. Smith introduced Allen to her neighbours in Emerald Park, near Bank and Albion, and he quickly became a fixture, clearing snow in the winter and cutting lawns in the summer. The pocket money supplemented his disability pension, but his life was lived hand-to-mouth.