It's more a never-ending universe of opportunity, even when Mum or Dad issues orders to do jobs around the house.

We can all remember how alive we felt as kids, as close to being invincible as can be imagined. Sadness still visits, we know that, but something better's usually close by.

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When, as a kid, we encounter death it's still a relatively remote experience; Nan might pass away, but there's an innocence in the acceptance that this is what happens to old people.

A death of another kid though - a friend, a sibling, someone you know of, even if you don't know them well - is something else.

But it happens, and it's usually part of the story of the impact of childhood cancer. Many kids might only come across this watching the annual Royal Children's Hospital appeal on the TV.

It can arise though far, far closer to home, and when it does it's a shocking, almost undeserved, reality check.

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For the students of Border school Trinity Anglican College, this has been their experience of very recent times.

Immense sadness enveloped the school community in January when their beloved fellow student Hunter McBurnie, at just 14, lost his life to lymphoma, for which he had received a diagnosis in 2017.

But again, as kids do, so much of the students' telling of Hunter's story has been of the optimism he fostered in them for life, from those intrinsic qualities that defined him: his artistic talent, his energy, the fact he was such a good guy.

Seeing Hunter going through the draining physical challenges of his treatment was no doubt difficult to digest, but his classmates - as did he - still managed to look beyond that to relish those experiences that define lives, of all lengths, well-lived.

It's in that spirit that the Trinity community, with the students at its core, has done such an amazing - though conversely, not so incredible - job in raising, as of Friday afternoon, more than $140,000 in the World's Greatest Shave.

Team Hunter has indeed left a tremendous legacy, in turning heartache into possibility.

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