D.C. Plane Crash Victim Was a Bridesmaid in 8 Weddings Before Finding the ‘Love of Her Life,' Cousin Says (Exclusive)

• Kansas biology teacher Lindsey Fields, a loving wife, mother and biology teacher, was one of the 67 people victims of the D.C. plane crash

• “She always joked and said she was a self-proclaimed science nerd,” cousin Amy Costner-Lark tells PEOPLE

• Although there were many things her cousin loved, Costner-Lark says that her 3-year-old daughter "was her pride and joy"
  

As Amy Costner-Lark spoke about her cousin, Kansas biology teacher Lindsey Fields — one of the 67 people killed in the D.C. plane crash — she wore an accessory near and dear to Fields' heart: a “Yay, Science!” pin.

“She always joked and said she was a self-proclaimed science nerd,” Costner-Lark, a 49-year-old family nurse practitioner in Edmond, Okla., tells PEOPLE.

Costner-Lark says she saw the plane crash on the news the night of the tragedy, but turned it off because her husband worried it would make their daughter afraid to fly. At the time, she had no idea her cousin was on the flight. Even when she got a call from her mother the next day, she wasn't expecting to hear that her cousin was one of the victims.

“I had to pull over. I sat there in complete disbelief for probably an hour in my car. It's still unbelievable,” Costner-Lark says. “All these things happen to people and you think, ‘Oh, that's sad. I'll say a prayer for them.’ And you say one prayer and then you don't ever think about it much again, until it's your family...and then those things just take on a whole lot more meaning.”

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Costner-Lark grew up six miles away from Fields, 40, in rural, northwest Oklahoma, and the cousins both spent a lot of time together at their family’s 1,000-acre cattle ranch: the Pittman Family Farm.

“I remember her grandma saying one time, 'She just collects friends like honey collects flies.' People just are attracted to Lindsey,” says Costner-Lark, who is Fields' second cousin.

"She was always smiling, and she had an infectious laugh. It was so loud. I wish you could hear it," she adds.

Growing up, her cousin was a cheerleader and a member of the student council. “I think that's where she developed her leadership skills, which led her to be the president of this National Association of Biology teachers,” she says.

Fields also came from a long line of college professors – her grandfathers on both sides of the family taught college biology, and her father, Dr. Todd Carter, was a biology professor and a past president of the National Association of Biology Teachers.

“Lindsey went above and beyond with her students. She got to know them. She helped them to learn about life, not just about what she taught them in her classroom,” adds Costner-Lark. “She remained close to her students and followed them and coached them later on in their life and in their careers.”

In addition to her students, the list of things Fields loved in life included Great Danes — she had two, Abbey and Bella — and her alma mater, Oklahoma State University, where she earned both her bachelors and masters degrees. “She was an OSU cowboy and bled orange, as we say here in Oklahoma,” remarks Costner-Lark.

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When it came to love and friendship, Fields — who could make "you feel like you're the only person in the room" — was a bridesmaid in eight weddings.

“We never thought she would get married, she was always going to be a bridesmaid,” her cousin says. “She was in a lot of weddings because she had so many friends. And then she did find the love of her life.”

She and her husband’s first date was Valentine’s weekend 2016 and he ended up proposing at the Wichita Zoo with the help of a penguin that walked out wearing a "Will You Marry Me" sign around his neck. They got married at a historic hotel in downtown Wichita in October 2018 and later welcomed their daughter, now 3.

“What's made this whole thing so hard is her baby that she leaves behind. That's personally what's so challenging for me — I've really struggled with the fact that she won't get to see all the things with her baby," Costner-Lark says. “Her baby was her pride and joy and just like any mother, I think she was already teaching her daughter to love science."

As for what she hopes her cousin's daughter will grow up knowing about her mom, Costner-Lark says it all boils down to love, specifically "her big heart and her love for people and her love for science."

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Costner-Lark says she last saw her cousin at the family ranch over the Christmas holiday.

“Her daughter was on her legs. They were doing the horsey game, and we were just talking about what classes she was going to teach this semester,” she says.

She remembers her cousin telling her about "how proud" she was of a program that allowed high school juniors and seniors to take classes at Butler Community College in Andover, Kan., where she taught and served as department chair.

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In the wake of her death, a GoFundMe has been established to fund endowed scholarships in Fields' name at Oklahoma State University and Butler Community College.

“The goal is to try to make a big impact,” Costner-Lark says, adding, "That's a way that she can continue to be a science teacher."

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