6 days

Not even a week - hardly more than a blink in time - yet during these six clicks of the calendar so many lives have been changed in so many ways by just one single act of one young man who broke the rules.

Today - just 6 days after the event - I went to the funeral of a beautiful young woman who, until last Friday night, had her life ahead of her. She had found love, she had a job teaching which she was loving, she was enjoying the start of the long weekend at a public campground in the New Zealand wilderness - which she also loved passionately - when a 'deer hunter' mistook her head-light for a deers eyes and shot her.

Dead.

I'm filled with such great sadness - for the loss of such a wonderful young woman and for her parents, her brother, her partner, her grandmother, her aunts, uncles and cousins, her friends, her students, her colleagues.......so many lives touched and so many lives so much emptier - although so much richer for having known her during her all-too-brief life on earth.

And what of the shooter? A young man of the same age, a father to his young son, devastated by the consequences of his actions - his life now changed forever too. Remorse? Regret? "If only...." It's all too late now. There's no going back. The pages are turned. One thoughtless action that took just seconds has erased a life and permanently gouged the hearts of hundreds.

A father, a boy, a dog...........

What will your lives be like in just 6 short days I wonder?