Dear Stenographer —
You probably will not remember me. I was a young girl on February 2, 2001, less than a day postpartum. Sore. Engorged. Trying to be brave in a room that did not feel survivable.
You were there with your machine, perfectly poised, back straight, at the foot of my hospital bed.
For years, I didn’t remember you. Not your face. Not your voice. Not a single word you said in that room, if you did speak at all. What I remembered were your fingers. I remembered because I stared at them as an act of dissociation. They were moving. They were precise. They were detached. They were faithful to the record.
I am a court reporter now.
Life has this funny little way of circling back on itself. I changed careers decades later, unaware that one of the deepest wounds of my life had a stenographic soundtrack. I started in voice writing because of chronic wrist inflammation. A couple years ago, restless and curious, I began teaching myself machine steno. Several weeks in, fumbling through basic chords (up to 40 words per minute! — or maybe it was 14), I looked down at my own hands and something in me split open.
Your machine came back to me.
So did that day.
I remembered signing papers while my body was still in shock from labor. I remembered trying to nurse my son while relinquishing my rights to raise him. I remembered hating everyone in the room, except him, but including me. And including you.
Especially you.
Especially …
… you.
You were the only person in that room who was not emotionally entangled. You were steady and clinical. You were necessary. And I resented you for it. I resented that the worst decision of my life was being preserved in perfect strokes. I resented that my grief had to be captured cleanly — that it would live somewhere in black and white.
I know now what you were doing.
You were doing what I do every day now. You were protecting the integrity of a moment. You were creating a record so that what happened could not be distorted later. You were serving the process, not the pain. You may not have known the full weight of the assignment when you accepted it. Or maybe you did, and you showed up anyway.
There’s a particular kind of discipline that’s required to sit inside someone else’s devastation and remain neutral. To not fix it. To not flinch. To not interfere. Just to capture it faithfully.
I did not understand that as a terrified teen.
Part of me has blamed you all these years because it’s easier than sitting with the truth. You didn’t cause that day. You didn’t create my circumstances. You didn’t make the choice. You just recorded it.
There’s something sobering about realizing that I’ve now sat in rooms on the worst days of other people’s lives. I have taken down divorces, criminal admissions, survivors’ statements, medical catastrophes, corporate collapses. I have watched hands shake while signatures were placed on pages that would change everything. And I have kept writing.
Clean record. Every word matters. Every single time.
That includes the unbearable ones.
I don’t know if I’ll ever completely separate the sound of keys from the sound of my own heart breaking. But I’m beginning to see that what you did wasn’t cruelty. It was service.
If I could sit across from you now, I would not accuse you. I would not hate you. I would ask you how you learned to stay steady in rooms like that. How your hands kept their rhythm while someone else’s world collapsed in real time. I would ask whether the sound of your machine ever followed you home. Whether you ever sat in your car afterward, engine off, hands still, letting the silence settle before walking back into your own life.
I would tell you that the girl sobbing in a hospital bed, hair matted to her face, gown twisted, body still trembling from labor, while holding an impossibly small human she would never hold again, eventually built a life. That that ache in her empty arms did not last forever. That the milk dried.
I would tell you she learned how to breathe again.
That she became a wife. A mother. A business owner. A court reporter. That she understands the weight of preserving a moment, even when it shatters someone.
I would tell you she survived.
That she understands now:
You were not my enemy.
You were a witness.
And now, so am I.
Dear Stenographer —
You probably will not remember me. I was a young girl on February 2, 2001, less than a day postpartum. Sore. Engorged. Trying to be brave in a room that did not feel survivable.
You were there with your machine, perfectly poised, back straight, at the foot of my hospital bed.
For years, I didn’t remember you. Not your face. Not your voice. Not a single word you said in that room, if you did speak at all. What I remembered were your fingers. I remembered because I stared at them as an act of dissociation. They were moving. They were precise. They were detached. They were faithful to the record.
I am a court reporter now.
Life has this funny little way of circling back on itself. I changed careers decades later, unaware that one of the deepest wounds of my life had a stenographic soundtrack. I started in voice writing because of chronic wrist inflammation. A couple years ago, restless and curious, I began teaching myself machine steno. Several weeks in, fumbling through basic chords (up to 40 words per minute! — or maybe it was 14), I looked down at my own hands and something in me split open.
Your machine came back to me.
So did that day.
I remembered signing papers while my body was still in shock from labor. I remembered trying to nurse my son while relinquishing my rights to raise him. I remembered hating everyone in the room, except him, but including me. And including you.
Especially you.
Especially …
… you.
You were the only person in that room who was not emotionally entangled. You were steady and clinical. You were necessary. And I resented you for it. I resented that the worst decision of my life was being preserved in perfect strokes. I resented that my grief had to be captured cleanly — that it would live somewhere in black and white.
I know now what you were doing.
You were doing what I do every day now. You were protecting the integrity of a moment. You were creating a record so that what happened could not be distorted later. You were serving the process, not the pain. You may not have known the full weight of the assignment when you accepted it. Or maybe you did, and you showed up anyway.
There’s a particular kind of discipline that’s required to sit inside someone else’s devastation and remain neutral. To not fix it. To not flinch. To not interfere. Just to capture it faithfully.
I did not understand that as a terrified teen.
Part of me has blamed you all these years because it’s easier than sitting with the truth. You didn’t cause that day. You didn’t create my circumstances. You didn’t make the choice. You just recorded it.
There’s something sobering about realizing that I’ve now sat in rooms on the worst days of other people’s lives. I have taken down divorces, criminal admissions, survivors’ statements, medical catastrophes, corporate collapses. I have watched hands shake while signatures were placed on pages that would change everything. And I have kept writing.
Clean record. Every word matters. Every single time.
That includes the unbearable ones.
I don’t know if I’ll ever completely separate the sound of keys from the sound of my own heart breaking. But I’m beginning to see that what you did wasn’t cruelty. It was service.
If I could sit across from you now, I would not accuse you. I would not hate you. I would ask you how you learned to stay steady in rooms like that. How your hands kept their rhythm while someone else’s world collapsed in real time. I would ask whether the sound of your machine ever followed you home. Whether you ever sat in your car afterward, engine off, hands still, letting the silence settle before walking back into your own life.
I would tell you that the girl sobbing in a hospital bed, hair matted to her face, gown twisted, body still trembling from labor, while holding an impossibly small human she would never hold again, eventually built a life. That that ache in her empty arms did not last forever. That the milk dried.
I would tell you she learned how to breathe again.
That she became a wife. A mother. A business owner. A court reporter. That she understands the weight of preserving a moment, even when it shatters someone.
I would tell you she survived.
That she understands now:
You were not my enemy.
You were a witness.
And now, so am I.
You probably will not remember me. I was a young girl on February 2, 2001, less than a day postpartum. Sore. Engorged. Trying to be brave in a room that did not feel survivable.
You were there with your machine, perfectly poised, back straight, at the foot of my hospital bed.
For years, I didn’t remember you. Not your face. Not your voice. Not a single word you said in that room, if you did speak at all. What I remembered were your fingers. I remembered because I stared at them as an act of dissociation. They were moving. They were precise. They were detached. They were faithful to the record.
I am a court reporter now.
Life has this funny little way of circling back on itself. I changed careers decades later, unaware that one of the deepest wounds of my life had a stenographic soundtrack. I started in voice writing because of chronic wrist inflammation. A couple years ago, restless and curious, I began teaching myself machine steno. Several weeks in, fumbling through basic chords (up to 40 words per minute! — or maybe it was 14), I looked down at my own hands and something in me split open.
Your machine came back to me.
So did that day.
I remembered signing papers while my body was still in shock from labor. I remembered trying to nurse my son while relinquishing my rights to raise him. I remembered hating everyone in the room, except him, but including me. And including you.
Especially you.
Especially …
… you.
You were the only person in that room who was not emotionally entangled. You were steady and clinical. You were necessary. And I resented you for it. I resented that the worst decision of my life was being preserved in perfect strokes. I resented that my grief had to be captured cleanly — that it would live somewhere in black and white.
I know now what you were doing.
You were doing what I do every day now. You were protecting the integrity of a moment. You were creating a record so that what happened could not be distorted later. You were serving the process, not the pain. You may not have known the full weight of the assignment when you accepted it. Or maybe you did, and you showed up anyway.
There’s a particular kind of discipline that’s required to sit inside someone else’s devastation and remain neutral. To not fix it. To not flinch. To not interfere. Just to capture it faithfully.
I did not understand that as a terrified teen.
Part of me has blamed you all these years because it’s easier than sitting with the truth. You didn’t cause that day. You didn’t create my circumstances. You didn’t make the choice. You just recorded it.
There’s something sobering about realizing that I’ve now sat in rooms on the worst days of other people’s lives. I have taken down divorces, criminal admissions, survivors’ statements, medical catastrophes, corporate collapses. I have watched hands shake while signatures were placed on pages that would change everything. And I have kept writing.
Clean record. Every word matters. Every single time.
That includes the unbearable ones.
I don’t know if I’ll ever completely separate the sound of keys from the sound of my own heart breaking. But I’m beginning to see that what you did wasn’t cruelty. It was service.
If I could sit across from you now, I would not accuse you. I would not hate you. I would ask you how you learned to stay steady in rooms like that. How your hands kept their rhythm while someone else’s world collapsed in real time. I would ask whether the sound of your machine ever followed you home. Whether you ever sat in your car afterward, engine off, hands still, letting the silence settle before walking back into your own life.
I would tell you that the girl sobbing in a hospital bed, hair matted to her face, gown twisted, body still trembling from labor, while holding an impossibly small human she would never hold again, eventually built a life. That that ache in her empty arms did not last forever. That the milk dried.
I would tell you she learned how to breathe again.
That she became a wife. A mother. A business owner. A court reporter. That she understands the weight of preserving a moment, even when it shatters someone.
I would tell you she survived.
That she understands now:
You were not my enemy.
You were a witness.
And now, so am I.
— originally posted February 26, 2026, on Facebook.
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