I did say that one of the greatest losses after disability can be the quiet erosion of other people’s belief in your autonomy.

“Good support,” I said, “helps a person make their own decisions.

It doesn’t replace their decisions with someone else’s.”

Afterward, a woman approached me and said her father had recently lost significant vision.

She admitted she’d begun speaking for him at appointments because it seemed easier.

“I thought I was helping,” she said.

“You may have been,” I answered.

“But ask him which parts he wants you to handle.