Unexpected kindness is the most powerful, least costly, and most underrated agent of human change.
For me, the smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.
Last Tuesday, Natasha Crittenden Wilson was at Dr. Kenneth LeMaster’s office in Sheffield, Ala.
At the clinic she witnessed something that touched her heart and she knew she had to pick up her phone to take a picture.
She originally covered up the woman’s face in the photo because Natasha didn’t know her.
Since then, her post has been shared nearly half a million times and viewed 1.3 million times.
In the photo, a white-haired man in a plaid shirt holds a sleeping baby, cradling the baby’s head and bottom with his hands.
“I was sitting in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, a lady walked in with a sleeping baby on her shoulder,” Natasha Wilson told “Good Morning America.”
The woman was trying to figure out how to hold the baby and do the paperwork at the same time. According to Natasha Wilson’s post on Facebook, the woman had entered the office with a sleeping baby in her arms.
She was trying to figure out how to hold the baby and fill out her paperwork at the same time when, from across the room, the man asked if he could hold the baby. The woman, she said, smiled and told him “that would be wonderful.”
The man held the baby for about 10 minutes before he was called for his appointment.
Also, she wasn’t even sure if the baby belonged to her, or if she was babysitting, and she didn’t want to cause any problems for her.
The woman in the photo was eventually identified as Jade West, is black. The baby is Jayce Billings and the man who held him is Joe Hale, who is white.
Natasha Wilson said she wishes people would see people for people and not color.
”Racism is still VERY real in our society today”
”I felt relieved and appreciated at the fact that he wanted to help, he seemed really genuine,” West told “GMA” of Hale. “He talked about how he never stops being a ‘paw paw’ and how he loved kids and just about my baby in general! He was literally just loving on him and talking to him as if he was his own grandchild and had known him his whole life. He was just the sweetest.”
Wilson said she wishes people would see people for people and not color.
“Racism is still VERY real in our society today,” Wilson wrote, “BUT THIS MAN GAVE ME HOPE & a sweet memory I’ll never forget!!
“If you know this man tell him what an amazing person he is!!”
Among the 77,000 comments on Wilson’s post was this one from Lorraine Brady, who wrote: “A reminder of how to be a human being.”
I can only agree! This is a true gentleman helping out a young mother.
Share this on Facebook if you think this man deserves all the tribute in the world
