Somewhere In My Past: Every goodbye leaves a wing behind

In the quiet halls of a senior home on Vancouver Island, night-shift worker Nico moves through his routines with gentle steadiness-brewing tea, checking hallways, and carrying the weight of an ocean between himself and his mother in the Philippines. But everything changes when he meets Agatha, an elderly resident whose life holds the echoes of war, migration, love, and loss.As Agatha shares her stories-of fleeing Europe during World War II, of painting birds to survive grief, of the son she lost to silence-an unexpected companionship forms between them. When she chooses to pursue Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), Nico becomes the quiet witness to her final days.After her passing, Nico is left with her last painting: a bird in motion, wings open, returning home. Grieving, he begins to draw for the first time-birds rising, resting, flying, leaving, arriving-each one a step toward healing.When a new resident named Elena arrives, echoing Agatha in gentle, uncanny ways, Nico discovers that endings can also be beginnings, and that the people we lose often leave us with wings.A tender novel about migration, memory, chosen family, and the quiet work of healing, Somewhere In My Past is a story of the unexpected connections that save us, the art that carries us, and the ways we learn to come home to ourselves.