4th Annual Random Acts of Kindness Day

Today I'm being helped to spread the message of our 4th Annual Random Acts of Kindness Day.  Laura at Living A Big Story is sharing our story and our day with her readers.  For all of you joining you in this tradition, we thank you!

This year as we approach the anniversary of the deaths of Joie's family members, our family is also in a time of celebration with legally adding Gabby to our family, and preparing for her to be sealed to our family.  I can't help but think of the contrasts.  Then the more I thought of the contrast, the less of a contrast it became.  I'm thankful for eternal perspective, and the understanding that this moment in time is only a dot on the eternal timeline.

Actions and choices make up the content of our lives, and certainly as we celebrate the kindness of others, we celebrate the kindness that made up their lives.

Over the past few days I have been asking friends and family to share memories with me about how they have been beneficiaries of kindness through the lives of Ruth and Nick.  We will share some of these as well as acts of kindness we received from others following the loss of Joie's family.

• My mom shared how Ruth struggled to feel accepted and wanted in high school, but was a friend to all.  At her viewing, many people from her class came through the line commenting on how much Ruth's friendship had meant to them.
• Everyone shares stories of how Nick helped them with their computer problems.  Joie still calls her dad a geek, and remembers him always fixing someone's computer.  I remember him not only fixing computers, but talking to people while he fixed computers.  He cared about people and their lives, and it was his human touch that made others remember him.

We also remember acts of kindness from others:

• People who drove miles to come be by our sides at the hospital.
• Friends and neighbors who showed up at our door with food, gifts, hugs, and well-wishes.  I remember one neighbor in particular who had already brought a gift but showed up again a few days later with a bag of peaches from her tree.  A few years later my sister called me when one of her neighbors died.  We talked about the peaches.  It was one of the gifts I remember most.  In a situation that is completely helpless, people were just doing what they could to help out, and it was those small acts of connection and kindness we remembered.  (My sister ended up taking strawberries to her neighbor, and later her neighbor told her how much she appreciated my sister just stopping by.)
• One of my cousins also called, saying his wife, whose mother had died when she was younger, wanted to give Joie a necklace she had which had belonged to her mom.  It was one of those gifts that formed a connection between Joie and someone she had never met, and let her know, from someone else who knew, that she would be ok.

Switching gears...  Ruth also had a sense of humor.  After she died, we found evidence of her humor everywhere.  Among the many earthly possessions left behind by Ruth and Nick were their scriptures, which became treasures to Joie who loved to read the notes her parents wrote.  Inside the back cover of Ruth's scriptures was the following quote:  "A good deed is like wetting your pants in a dark suit.  No one notices, but it sure feels good!"

Only Ruth would write that in  her scriptures.

She also wrote that things we love "are best when shared with someone else."  

We are inviting all of you to share with us this gift of kindness by celebrating our 4th Annual Random Acts of Kindness Day on August 18th.  Kindness can happen with anyone, anytime, anywhere.  The goal is to spread kindness on that day in honor of the lives of Ruth, Nick and Audrey, and those who showed kindness to our family during our time of need.  

Now it's our turn to pass it on.

(See Joie's blog here for her smilebox creations about her family.)