Amanda Buckley

I am sure I am not the only one in the world who has googled themselves. I do it often as Amanda Buckley is a fairly common name and getting through all those thousands of results can take some time. I think I am up to page 98 or something.

The google results though have changed recently and I was more than a little unsettled by it. An 18 year old American girl, who I had noticed in the past google searches had made a fairly huge impact on the soft balling world was recently murdered.

For years when I had hit "search" I had seen her name appear in sports columns, blogs, school newsletters etc, all noting her great achievements. Today however, the search noted the events which tragically and horrifically have cut her life short.

Instead of skimming past the search results as I would normally do, today I took the time to read some things about Amanda Buckley. She seemed like a really great girl. A talented soft baller who had won a full scholarship to college. Her teammates said she was always lifting their spirits and even making their opponents laugh. She was an only child who meant the world to her parents.

I never would have met her. I would never have known anything about her. She would never have made an impact on my life. But for the very fact that we share a name. I cannot help but feel touched by her life and saddened by passing of it. Such a dark ending for such a bright light.