Grieving Independence

Until it happens to you, you don’t often get to hear about the quiet but unending grief and anger at what you could once do. When we picture getting older, we usually imagine being able to slowly no longer do what we want, what we love, and what we need to do to function as a human being. We never picture what often actually happens which is a very sudden and abrupt loss of what we were once able to do.

What do I mean by this?

I have spent years working in healthcare, usually as a caregiver or CNA (Certified Nursing Assistant), and what I usually observed with my residents, patients, and clients is that their loss of ability to do simple tasks is usually brought on abruptly through an illness or an accident.

It is something I have recently become very personally acquainted with.

The sudden unexpected loss of my ability to do things I was once able to do without any effort or thought has really thrown me through the wringer and then some. I could do this one thing last week, last month, last year… and then one day without warning it’ll be the last day you do that thing; it was the last day I did those things, and I didn’t even know it would be the last.  

And the next time you try to do the thing you have done a thousand times without effort and then fail at it… first you’ll be confused, then denial, trying to blame it on exhaustion or ‘xyz’ reason, and then when you keep failing comes anger. Because why couldn’t I do this one simple task that I have done for years? But now… I can’t. You feel weak, like a failure, or at least I did.

Then comes the grief.

It’s quiet and lonely because once you have accepted your situation you know it’s only the first thing of a great many to come that you’ll no longer be able to do and then it is the fear of what is it I do today that I will no longer be able to do tomorrow? What is it that I have already done that was my last and I don’t even know it yet? What else can I lose? How much can I lose before my entire independence is at risk?

I have watched my patients quietly and stoically stand in an empty kitchen, with a bottle they can’t open, and gather probably every last scrap of bravery and chutzpah within them to then ask for help.

As I now go through a similar process, I have to wonder when and if they ever broke down. Did they let themselves properly grieve the little losses of their independence, dignity, and pride? Did they look back on these moments and wish that I had understood even a fraction of what was actually happening in that kitchen? Did I upset them further by telling them that they just needed to ask me for help and I would always be there when they needed me?

When I couldn’t open the lid to my thermos because my hands hurt too much and my lid was on too tight, I sat down on my kitchen floor and cried. Even if someone had been there to help me, I probably wouldn’t have asked them, and if some well-meaning soul told me to reach out for help… Well at that moment I probably would have either screamed or cried more. It wasn’t my first instance of loss, but it was the one that drove home that this wasn’t just going to go away, no matter how hard I wished for it to be just temporary. I can now recognize their quiet grief within my own now. I know if I ever came across a similar situation that I would react much differently now as someone who vaguely understands what might be going through their head.

Sometimes the loss of control over your own life is even greater than the pain from whatever illness or accident that brought on this sudden and drastic life change.

I am learning, slowly, to adapt to my new limitations. To get creative so tasks are still accessible to me. But in those moments when I find something new that I can no longer do, the grief is now quieter, the anger comes and goes quicker, but there is still an ache as pieces of my independence, my dignity, my pride, and my overall mental wellbeing are chipped away. I don’t know if there will ever come a day where the loss of something so small but so significant will ever stop hurting. But I do know I will get better at managing the grief, the pain, and the loss.

I hope for anyone out there experiencing this or something like this, that you can grieve properly, thoroughly, and without shame. I also hope you heal from that grief. Know that you are not alone and asking for help is not an admittance of defeat or weakness. Every day that you wake up and face the day’s challenges makes you stronger than the last day, even if you don’t feel it.

Happy Disability Pride Month 2026