The hospital bracelet still says “Baby Boy”

Dear Delyara, My son lived for eleven minutes. We had not chosen his name yet because we thought we had time. The bracelet the hospital gave us says only Baby Boy Hernandez. During those eleven minutes, my husband held him first because I was still on the operating table. I asked whether he was warm. My husband said yes. I asked whether he looked like our daughter. He said yes. I think both answers were intended to protect me. We named him Mateo afterward, but every official item from his life uses a category instead of his name. Baby Boy. Male. 1,420 grams. Eleven minutes. Tonight, I took the bracelet from the memory box and wrote Mateo on the inside with the finest pen I could find. The letters barely fit. I know that changes nothing in hospital records. I needed one object from the room where he lived to contain the name he would have heard if he had stayed long enough for us to call him. My daughter asked why I was writing on the bracelet. I said, “Because your brother had a name.” She repeated it once, Mateo, then went back to coloring. Hearing his name in the voice of the sister who never met him made those eleven minutes feel larger than the numbers printed around them.