OAKLAND — There was no surer sign that things still are not normal for 12-year-old Aaron Hern than the fact that he threw out the first pitch before the A’s-Giants game Tuesday night.
On the other hand, the Martinez resident, one of the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, looked every inch the kid as he was all smiles while meeting members of the A’s and Giants before throwing his heater to A’s first baseman Brandon Moss to get the night’s proceedings underway at the Coliseum.
“He’s definitely getting the chance to be a kid again,” said Alan Hern, Aaron’s father, on the Coliseum turf before the game. “He’s back in school. He was at a pool party the other day with his friends from junior high. He’s got an iPod Touch, too, so he’s texting like all his friends.
“But he still has bad days. And it’s hard to predict when they might come or what might set them off. It might be a song he hears or an image. Sometimes it’s nothing at all.”
The Hern family was in Boston because Aaron’s mother, Katherine, was running in her first Boston Marathon. And Aaron was one of nearly 200 people injured as the bombs detonated. Surgeons had to remove bits of metal from his legs in a series of surgeries, necessitating a long stay at Children’s Hospital in Boston.
During Hern’s stay in the hospital, he received visits from Moss, outfielder Josh Reddick and first-base coach Tye Waller when the A’s were in town.
“The hospital visit by the A’s was a special thing,” said Alan Hern, who is the football coach at Alhambra High. “It was a very cool thing for them to do. Aaron really hit it off with Moss. They talked about how it would be nice to meet under different circumstances.”
Aaron Hern hasn’t wanted to talk yet with the media, and Tuesday was no different. His father said Aaron doesn’t want to replay what happened more than he has to.
There are still nights where he is haunted by what happened.
“The thing is, no one is trained for this,” Alan Hern said.
The Hern family was on the field before the game during Giants batting practice. After that, Aaron and Alan Hern went into the A’s clubhouse to get a tour and to meet the rest of the squad.
Alan Hern is a die-hard Giants fan but said he hasn’t been able to pass that on to his son, who he says “is more neutral” in the battle between the Bay Area teams. And while Aaron Hern was wearing a green A’s T-shirt, on more than one occasion he lifted that up to display a black Giants’ jersey underneath.
On this night, that seemed perfectly normal.
