7. Hi Tommy, Bye Tommy 🕊️

Some people open their door once, and it feels like home forever.

Every year when my Anaan and I travelled back home, I’d make my rounds — family, friends, one by one, endless cups of tea, coffee, bannock, and stories.

One door I always looked forward to was my good friend Tommy’s. He offered tea, a story, a laugh — never mind what he had or didn’t have. Like me, he was adopted by his grandparents. We connected on that. He was also living in my brother’s house, the one where my brother had taken his own life at twenty-one.

There was something about being there — the same porch, the same kitchen — where the air still held a quiet echo of loss. But sitting at that table with Tommy brought light back into a place that once only knew pain.

Each year, there were fewer and fewer doors to walk through, until the community felt almost unrecognizable.

Then one day, Tommy messaged me to say he was heading out hunting. He was proud, excited, but he never came home, he never messaged again, and that was the last time I ever walked through his door — the last time we sat around that table sharing food and laughter.

We never know when a “Hi Tommy” and a “Bye Tommy” will be the last ones we get to say.

That’s the quiet rule of being human: we meet, we part, and we never really know which moment is the goodbye.

Be kind while you can. That’s the only part we get to choose.

Sometimes, the stories we don’t say — the people who played these quiet roles in our lives — are the ones that shape us the most.

I carry them with me in colour and light, in paint and paper.

Because every time I create, their stories keep taking shape too — changing form, finding new life, and reminding me that love never really leaves, it just learns new ways to be seen.

Paint on Chels 🤟Paint on 😂🥹

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Chelsea Singoorie
ᓯᐅᓯ ᓯᖒᕆᖅ
Founder & Artist, The Qujanaq Project by Nunabox