The form’s empty space may be too small for the truth it requests.

Forms ask about lives and give them two lines. The question about your relationship to the deceased, your reason for applying, your history of illness, arrives with a box built for something simpler than the answer. People then flatten themselves to fit, and the flattened version becomes the record.

If a box is too small for your answer, write the short true thing rather than the tidy false one, and say more elsewhere if there is anywhere to say it. If you design forms, leave room and ask fewer questions. And when you read somebody’s file, remember what the boxes could not hold.