The last words I spoke to George Lukacs were sincere but woefully delayed: “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Mr. Lukacs was my high school English teacher in the 1980s. He is, in many ways, the reason I write for a living.

In late March, I learned via a social media post that he’s dying, and realized I had never – not in the 30-plus years since graduating – told him what a profound impact he had on my life. I had never thanked him.

So I rushed to track him down, and he graciously carved out time for a call. We caught up recently, we laughed and chatted, condensed decades into minutes, and I told him the things I should have said long ago. In that conversation, there was, appropriately, a final lesson.

I wasn’t planning on writing about this – it was personal. But in the weeks that followed, it stuck with me, and I came to think what I learned from Mr. Lukacs should be shared.

It’s simple, really: Don’t wait. Don’t wait to thank those who have changed you. Don’t wait to let the teachers, mentors or counselors, the ones who once helped you take the next step, know they made your life better than it would have been without them.

When I entered Mr. Lukacs’ English class in high school, I already had the fundamentals of good writing stamped into my brain. I had learned the form and structure that........

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