The surprising power of kindness

Occasionally, I share a column based on Robert Petterson’s, The One Year Book of Amazing Stories: 365 Days of Seeing God’s Hand in Unlikely Places.

Here is one of the author’s incredible stories.

The final notes of the famous jazz musician’s life were fading fast when he checked into New York City’s Beth Israel Hospital.

His doctors were surprised to discover the African American man was wearing a Star of David, and that he insisted on living out his final days in a Jewish hospital. When his attending physician, Dr. Gary Zucker, began humming an old Yiddish lullaby, he was shocked when the old man began to sing it with him.

As the man contemplated his life and the fact that he was nearing its end, he asked for a pen and paper and began to reflect on his life in New Orleans during the repressive Jim Crow era of the early 1900s.

He fondly remembered how the Karnofsky family had taken him in. He began working for them as a child, starting at 5 each morning collecting junk and rags. They would end the night delivering coal to houses of prostitution.

Gradually, the African American child became part of a Jewish family. He grew to relish their kosher food and came to cherish their Yiddish songs.

When he was a little older and as his love for their music grew, this Lithuanian Jewish immigrant family advanced him the money to purchase a cheap horn from a pawnshop. It was an important moment in the life of the legendary jazz musician.

The old man filled 70 pages before he stopped writing.

Across the top of the first page he wrote, “Louis Armstrong + the Jewish family in New Orleans, La., the year of 1907.”

Petterson suggested that, “it was because of the Karnofsky family that Armstrong transcended race and touched the whole world.”

His Yiddish sing-alongs in the 1964 hit “Hello Dolly!” jetted their way to the top of the charts. Armstrong’s most beloved song, “What a Wonderful World” can be traced back to the family who showed him kindness when kindness was rare for a Black kid in the deep south.

Louis’ story reminds me a bit of something the Apostle Paul wrote, “So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.” (Galatians 6:9, NLT)

Because of the kindness of the Karnofsky family, the world is certainly a better place.

When you and I are kind to those that many around us tend to write off, we have the incredible potential to make the world a little more wonderful too.

Tim Richards grew up in Fairdealing and previously served as associate pastor of Pilgrim’s Rest Church there. He currently serves as a pastor on the staff of Concord Church in South County St. Louis.