Cordelia looks around the grassy hillside for a tall daisy before plucking it. She says she's been making daisy chains for almost half her life. "My mom taught me when I was in kindergarten," the almost-nine year old says.
Now that Cordelia's in Grade 3, she's teaching her brother Felix, who's in kindergarten. "You pull it open, not too high, otherwise it will break," she says, making a hole in the stem. "Then you stick the other daisy through, then pull it."
Cordelia is turning her daisy chains into bracelets, belts, and headbands. "You can make anything you'd actually like," she says pointing to two daisy chains wrapped around her ankles.
Felix is in the midst of making a chain that's more than a bazillion infinity feet long. "I guess as long as the whole entire world," the five year old explains with a smile.
"I've given some to people for free," Cordelia says while looking at a stranger across the street. "Because I thought it would be nice."
Then she runs to ask her dad something before heading across the street to present a daisy chain to an elderly woman with a walker. "She put the daisy chain around my neck," 90-year-old Joan smiles. "I could never do these when I was young."
So Cordelia starts teaching Joan. And for a few moments, instead of being strangers separated by age, they are friends connected through kindness. "I've never had one before," Joan admits. "It’s rather surprising and very nice."
Then Felix appears and offers Joan a daisy chain he made. When I ask if this is the best moment of her day, Joan says it's even better than that. "I shall remember this quite a bit," she smiles.
Then Cordelia and Felix return to the field across the street. If a couple of small daisy chains could make such a positive impact on Joan, who knows what might happen if they make that big one long enough to wrap around the world.
