I Cut the Tie

From now on every March will be "that time".  The time when I find myself reliving the days leading up to, the day of and the days after Eli's birth.  I've celebrated his birthday, ignored his funeral anniversary and am now caught up with one of the finalities of his brief life - his/my hospital band.  I wore that hospital band long after he was born and took great care to protect it from water to preserve those precious words and date.  "Baby boy, March 11, 2011".  Concrete proof that I had another little boy, that he was real and that he was mine.  It got to the point where water had gotten into it and the ink was starting to blur.  This simple thing brought me to tears and forced me to a heartwrenching decision to cut off the band.  Cutting that band ravaged my insides almost as badly as putting my lifeless little boy's body in the nurses arms that snowy March evening.  For me cutting the band was as final as when they cut Eli's umbilical cord and severed my lifeline to him, literally beginning his death.  I don't know what day I actually took that band off and it doesn't matter, the thought still brings tears to my eyes and burns a hole right through my heart.