He never says much, but he’s been there every time I needed him. And I can’t remember the last time I said thank you.

He never says much, but he’s been there every time I needed him. And I can’t remember the last time I said thank you. 

He’s the one who shows up with his truck when I need to move something. The one who grabs the ladder and fixes the light before I even notice it’s out. The one who drops off a set of tools because he knows I’ll never buy the right ones. And I let all of that pass like it was nothing. That’s the version of me I’ve been living — the friend who takes, never notices, and one day finds out he stopped showing up because I never said a word. But today, I catch it. The cabinet door doesn’t squeak anymore. The shelf I kept putting off is fixed. My car has gas in it because he filled it on the way over. I look at him and finally say, ‘Hey… thank you for fixing this stuff, for filling the tank, for always showing up. I noticed.’ He laughs it off, like he always does, but I can see it hit. I use an app called ‘quiet effort.’ It keeps me from being the kind of friend who only realizes what he had after it’s gone.