The prime minister is back in Ottawa; the church robes are tucked way; and the bagpipe laments to blood and sacrifice have faded into memory.

What lingers is the sorrow and a nagging question: Why is Cpl. Nathan Cirillo being mythologized as a hometown and national hero?

The 24-year-old Hamilton reservist was murdered in cold blood by a homeless crack addict with terrorist notions while he was ceremonially guarding the National War Memorial in Ottawa.

Cirillo's death was tragic and senseless, but in no way was it heroic.

By definition, a hero is someone singled out from the rest of us by their outstanding courage.

The accolade traditionally isn't bestowed for simply wearing a uniform, be it military, police or firefighter.

The honour is accrued by performing brave deeds and daring feats — risking or sacrificing your life to save others, valiantly defending a position, boldly destroying the enemy.

Cirillo may have possessed those heroic qualities and might even have had a chance to display them had he lived. But he didn't. He died unprepared and unarmed, the unlucky victim of a seemingly deranged killer who was himself gunned down after storming Parliament.

And yet the random nature of Cirillo's death has in no way impeded his posthumous promotion to hero in headlines, articles, comments, tweets and even a local billboard.

Does that mean anyone who dies while in uniform is automatically a hero? If so, what do we call those who really do perform lion-hearted acts?

The sad reality is we're doing truth an injustice by minimizing the true meaning of the word and elevating Cirillo into something he wasn't.

By all means, the city should appropriately commemorate him.

But as a lost son at the heart of a wrenching tragedy, not some kind of warrior-saint.

Cirillo's journey from innocent victim to national hero is a cautionary tale onto itself.

There's no question his meaningless murder at the cenotaph so close to Remembrance Day, combined with the assault on Parliament, struck Canadians as a desecration of our heritage and historic values.

The rush of relief that came with knowing it was the work of a lone shooter, rather than a co-ordinated conspiracy, gave lift and depth to the empathy churned up by the death of the good-looking young soldier.

Would the emotional outpouring have been as strong if Cirillo hadn't been so photogenic? We don't know, of course. But there's little doubt his physical attractiveness gave poignancy to the tragedy, as did the fact he was a young single father.

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That poignancy gained momentum as his body was returned to Hamilton along the Highway of Heroes, the funeral convoy route for fallen Canadians soldiers from the Afghanistan war.

Thousands lined the way, waving Canadian flags, spontaneously showing sympathy for Cirillo, his family, friends and comrades in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.

Hopefully, his poor mother took some comfort from it all.

Soon Cirillo's death had taken on an emotional life of its own, complete with saturation media coverage of every aspect of the funeral arrangements.

Emotion is contagious and it spread like wildfire. People felt intimately connected to the family. Cirillo's grief-stricken mother became all grief-stricken mothers, his orphaned son, all orphaned sons. People were not only touched by their loss, they were moved by images and stories of other people mourning.

The more connections there were, the more people needed to be part of it.

By the time this week's regimental funeral took place, Cirillo's death had snowballed into an overwhelming spectacle of public mourning, military pageantry and religious ceremony that was feeding on itself.

As a result, even before the prime minister was whisked away, before the church lights dimmed, before the bagpipes fell silent, Cirillo had achieved what amounts to secular canonization.

Through no action of his own, the accidental victim had become an accidental hero. But sadly, like all accident victims, he just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

- REACTION: Dreschel's accidental hero column