Cancer

There are people who changed the direction of your life without ever knowing they did it, and you carry a debt to them that has no clear way of being paid. The teacher who believed something about your writing before you did. The friend who modeled a different way of arguing. The neighbor who let you see what a marriage could look like when it was working. You think about calling them sometimes, or writing a letter, but the thank-you would sound too large and too late. What you owe them is not gratitude exactly but the careful use of what they gave you without meaning to give it.