John Walters

"April is the cruellest(sic) month."

Those are the words that T.S. Eliot used to begin his epic poem "The Waste Land" -- first published in 1922. Nowadays that phrase can often be a rueful punch line, used in conjunction with Tax Day or the inevitable and frequently unexpected April shower. Occasionally, though, the line is dead-on accurate in an acutely sobering way.

"The Waste Land" is a poem in five parts that, OK, few of us can decipher without the help of Wikipedia or an English professor. The first section, which contains the aforementioned line, is entitled "The Burial of the Dead". This week you might want to take a moment to honor two men whose lives ended all too early in April.

One year ago today, Jennifer Herbstritt of Bellefonte, Pa., was running the Boston Marathon. It was a wet and windy morning in Massachusetts, but Herbstritt's parents, Michael and Peggy, were there to cheer her on to the finish line. Her older brother Jeremy was not.

Jennifer, 25, had asked Jeremy, an avid runner, to run Boston with her. Jeremy said no. A graduate student in civil engineering at Virginia Tech, Jeremy was scheduled to teach a 9 a.m. Monday morning class inside Norris Hall. A Penn State alum who had undergraduate degrees in both molecular biology and biochemistry, and civil engineering, Jeremy was not one to shirk his academic responsibilities. He walked into class that day as Jennifer waited in Hopkinton, Mass., for her 26.2-mile odyssey to begin.

Four years ago next Tuesday, Pat Tillman died in Afghanistan. You know his story well. Tillman, the undersized Arizona Cardinals safety who put his lucrative career on hiatus to join the U.S. Army Rangers, was cut down by friendly fire in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Pat Tillman was 27 years old.

So was Jeremy Herbstritt.

By now you have correctly surmised that Herbstritt was one of the 32 victims of the Virginia Tech massacre. It is difficult to comprehend the range of emotions that must have enveloped Jennifer Herbstritt and her parents that day (there are two younger siblings, as well; Jeremy was the oldest). Excitement and anxiety, as Jennifer lined up to start the race. Confusion, as the first reports of something amiss at Virginia Tech became known (Jennifer phoned Jeremy's girlfriend, Alexis Bozzo, immediately after finishing in 3:59:07 and asked, "What the heck is going on?"). Fear, when there was no phone call from Jeremy as they made the long drive home to central Pennsylvania. And at last unrelenting grief as they learned the horrible news later that night.

You know about the character of Pat Tillman. His gusto for life, for challenging himself and everyone around him to be better, smarter, wiser. Jeremy Herbstritt was not an exact replica of Tillman, but it was often said of the extroverted older brother that "his smile was half his face."

You just never fully recover from deaths like these. And burial is simply not enough.

This Saturday, the fourth annual "Pat's Run" will be staged in Tempe, the Phoenix suburb in which Tillman played both his college (Arizona State) and professional football. The run is 4.2 miles, representing Tillman's Sun Devil jersey number, and it ends on the 42-yard line of Sun Devil Stadium.

Last year Pat's Run drew more than 13,000 runners and this year the organizers expect to draw at least that many. Proceeds will go to the Pat Tillman Foundation, which has already given away hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarship money.

The following Saturday, April 26th, the second annual Jeremy Herbstritt Memorial 5K Walk/Run will be staged at Penn State. Proceeds are being used to help build a community running track in the Bellefonte area, in accordance with the wishes of the Herbstritt family.

Later this year, on August 16th, the Herbstritts will host a Jeremy-styled triathlon that includes running, cycling and kayaking, which were his three favorite non-academic pursuits.

In the past 15 years, April has become a month of trepidation, from Oklahoma City to Columbine to Blacksburg. The news of Tillman's death, and the shameful way in which the U.S. Army handled the situation, was for many Americans the beginning of the unraveling of blind patriotism toward post-9/11 policy. The senselessness of Virginia Tech defies explanation.

Pat Tillman and Jeremy Herbstritt, both left too soon. There is a cavity in the soul of every person who knew them, one that will never be filled. They are never forgotten, though. In an earlier era people may have erected a statue to them, or named a building in their honor. Today they are honored with memorial runs, which are more inclusive and allow people to experience the natural high that inspired Tillman and Herbstritt on a daily basis.

On Tuesday evening I spoke to Jennifer Herbstritt. She had just walked in the door from her late-afternoon run (she ran 18 miles on Saturday) and was in good spirits. I asked her what running means to her. "It's my therapy," she said. "It's where I deal with everything that's going through my head. It's where I think about Jeremy."

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