“We will not be remembered by our words, but by our kind deeds. “

— Author Unknown

For those of us not directly impacted by the random act of violence in Aurora, Colorado yesterday, it’s easy to go on.

We write a note of condolence on our blog, Facebook, or Twitter. We talk about how awful it is and the pain the victims’ family must feel. Some will talk about vengeance.

We read a few articles and shake our heads in disgust. We wonder what can be done. Half of us will point fingers at our politicians to do something about gun violence. The other half will say we need to fight fire with fire.

Then we’ll get on with our lives.

Because that’s what we always do. We go back to doing whatever it was we were doing before. We go back to work or to school. We go back to shopping. We go back to church. We go back on vacation. We go back to our novel. We go back to American Idol. We go back to surfing the internet mindlessly. We go back to … forgetting.

But there is something we can do before the memories of this tragic, random act fade. For that one act of random violence, perpetrated by only one man, each of us can give our time to perform at least one random act of kindness.

There are thousands, maybe millions of people in the world right now who were shaken by this random tragedy. Maybe you’re one of them. If you are, don’t let another moment pass before you do your own random act of kindness. Step out of your comfort zone and help someone. Make your random act large or make it small, but don’t waste another minute or day without showing kindness to a stranger.

For every random act of violence, there can be millions of random acts of love and kindness.

But only if we all act … randomly.

Yesterday’s gift of time and kindness … Sent a small bouquet of flowers to the staff at a nearby care facility in hopes that the gift will find it’s way to someone who needs a little sunshine.

My heart goes out to all the victims of the shootings in Aurora, Colorado yesterday.