Life of Stewart Issue 17 | Page 22

Life Changer

When I was eight years old, I had my life changed forever. However, let's talk about who I was before I had my whole world turned upside down. I was your normal Iowa farm kid. I lived on a dairy farm outside of West Union. I grew up learing how to care for animals, have respect for everyone, and work hard. Unfortunately on March 27th, 2005 my life was changed forever.

It was a beautiful, sunny spring day, which was very rare in the month of March. In fact it was Easter Sunday. All of my Stewart side family were gathered at a local resturaunt, "Gus and Tony's". We were having the standard Easter brunch, when the topic had been brought up about my uncle, Greg's, new purchase, a piper airplane. This had gotten my attention almost immediately. He had mentioned that his son had just gotten his pilots license a year earlier, and was excited to fly.

As our brunch was coming to an end, Greg mentioned that he would like to take my family and I on a plane ride, to look over our family farm. I was overwhelmed with excitement! It would be the very first time that I would ever fly! Soon we headed to our local airport in West Union to enjoy a sight-seeing flight over our farm.

Once we arrived at the airport, it was determined who would go on what flight. My brother, Christian, my father, Brian, and my sister, Sarah, would all board the first flight with my uncle, Greg as their pilot. I was sort-of jealous that I couldn't go first, but I stood by and watched with my mother, Connie, as they came down the runway and took off.

It was abosultely incredible to watch the plane ascend into the air like it was nothing. This got me even more excited to go, after all I was next to go! After about 30 minutes I saw the plane returning to the airport and beginning its descend. I could barely contain myself!

Once my dad, brother, and sister got off of the plane Greg did the procedural check to make sure that everything was proper with the plane. He said that Andy (my cousin, and his son) would pilot the next flight. Before anyone got on though, my sister was absolutely raving at how amazing it was to see the farm from a "birds eye view". She told how much I was going to enjoy it, and now I was bursting with excitement! It was decided that on this flight it would be me, my mom, and my sister (again, because she had enjoyed the first flight so much).