“What makes you so special?”

“Nothing and everything all at once.”

Shasta daisies always bring to mind Spring, 1989, and the kindness of strangers. I was four years old at the time, the same age my daughter is now. I was one of a dozen other mini ballerinas parading across the stage at Crescent Elk Auditorium for our annual dance recital. It was the same stage I would awkwardly walk across a decade later during my eighth-grade graduation. Even more awkward having sipped from a small bottle of Peppermint Schnapps beforehand. (I sure was a special student. At-risk, I think they called it.) That was the first and last certificate of anything I would ever get in my hometown.

The day of the recital my four-year-old brain got tripped up after having walked out onto the stage, looked out to the audience, and noticed my Great Grandma Gladys sitting there. I froze. Usually my Great Grandma Gladys was in her manufactured home by the sea. In her dusty pink recliner. With my “Barrel of Monkeys”–a toy she kept just for me–on her TV stand. Usually she was at home, in her nightgown, smelling like Vix VapoRub and beef minestrone. But on the day of my ballet recital, she was right there in the audience, sitting with my Grandma Peggy, Great Aunt Tina and, of course, Dad. I almost couldn’t believe it, until she raised her hand to wave, palm facing me, wiggling four fingers and smiling. I was transfixed. My face turned pinker than our ballet shoes, and I stood firmly in place for the rest of our number, shyly waving back at Great Grandma Gladys while the other ballerinas did their grand plies and jetes all around me. I didn’t even move when the music stopped. Eventually an older ballerina, dressed head-to-toe in black, picked me up and whisked me backstage. I know because we have a video recording of the whole thing.

At the end of the recital (this is where the Shasta daisies come in) all the ballerinas from the entire recital went out on stage to take our final bow. The leads got big flower bouquets and rounds of enthusiastic applause. The younger mini ballerinas all got single red roses. And then there was me, the last mini ballerina and no more red roses to go around. Surely it was because I’d goofed up on my part, not even dancing like we’d been practicing for. But before anyone could boo or throw something or–even worse–collect their jackets and leave, a nameless, faceless stranger handed me a single white Shasta daisy on a sturdy green stem. They must have run outside and picked it.

The Shasta daisy set me apart, just as I had set myself apart earlier, as a stage frightened little girl. Not all of us are meant for the spotlight, or even for destined for the things that everyday people take for granted–a mother to look after you, graduations, trophies and certificates, a bedroom to yourself, red roses…That day in the auditorium was the first of many more humbling moments to come. But looking back, it reminds me that no matter how difficult the circumstances are, there is always an angel in the wings. The Shasta daisy is a reminder that I am both special and not special all at once.