My first snail mail influencer was my mom. Like many mothers, particularly in the South, she wanted me to write thank you notes for what seemed like damn near everything. For the first few years that I knew how to form letters, I turned out a good number of the comically brief and disingenuous gratitudes that are typical of kids that age.

I stopped around age 8. I like to think that I still verbally thanked people for gifts, kind words or acts, or just being awesome, but I’m really not sure. What I do know is that I resumed my thank you note practice in earnest in 2012, the year I resolved to write a letter a day. I wrote my thanks for things that were happening at the time and for things that had happened years ago. Aunt Karla probably never got a thank you note in 1988 when she sent me a box filled with dozens of individually wrapped gifts, so I could look forward to opening a little present each day that I was stuck home with mono. She did get one 24 years later.

Twenty-four years ago this summer, my dad was in the ICU. My friend Lindsay packed my stuff for college while I hung out at the hospital. Everything I had in my dorm room was something she thought I needed, and I was so moved by this effort, as well as her thoughtfulness in selecting just the right things to travel with me. I’ve told this story many times, and I realized recently that I haven’t expressed my appreciation to her nearly as much as I have to everyone else.

We are surrounded by helpers, especially right now. Millions of heroes are doing essential work to take care of us: truck drivers, grocery store employees, small business owners, pharmacists, sanitation workers, police - you know how far the list goes.

Many parents are now homeschool teachers to the generation that will run this place someday. They are helping build a bright future. Countless artists are creating more beauty for us to see, hear, feel, and taste. They are helping deliver hope, and connection, and some very welcome distraction. Once you start looking for the helpers, you’ll see them everywhere.

Please thank a helper today. Thank them for something they did 24 hours ago or 24 years ago. It’s never too late.

PS - Happy birthday, Linz. I’m so lucky to have known you for 3/4 of our years. And no, this isn’t your official thanks. That’ll be coming in the mail.