The favor you can no longer repay directly may still change how you treat the next person who asks.

Some kindnesses arrive from people you cannot pay back, because they have moved away, or died, or simply vanished from your life without an address. The debt does not disappear with the person. It becomes portable, and it gets settled sideways, in what you do for whoever is now standing where you once stood, needing the same thing.

If someone helped you at a point where you could not have managed alone, think about what specifically they did. Then look for the person near you in that position and offer it. Naming who taught you the gesture is a good way to carry them along.