Social Security Statement

Every year I receive a statement 
beginning with the ominous words
"Important Information that May Affect Your Benefits."
Have I not benefited from life already?
Friendships have sustained me.
Relationships have nurtured me.
Love, in all its forms, has carried me.
Yes, I have been wounded,
known sorrow, become frustrated and angry
at the ways of life and how some who live
and go about their day get in my way.
To see one's life-earnings reflected
in a monthly figure of benefits
reduces existence to the almighty dollar 
with very little sense of how I have lived.
Perhaps I should visit the online help center
to share about the time I passed
holding my daughter as she died.
Or share the joy of another daughter's wedding.
Or the time when I camped with all three daughters
in the midst of a grove of poplar trees
and we listened to the raucous laughter
of coyotes down by the river in the night.
Those times, along with the countless times
where I made eye contact with strangers,
should be on my Statement of Benefits.