I'd rather have my mother.

Finally, after waiting and filling out forms, and mailing forms, and waiting... I have received the first inheritance check. Mom and Dad had some decent investments, and lived frugally, so Brothers and I are getting the benefits of that.

I noticed that the check was all multiples of 3. My oldest brother said (He's the executor and wanted to make sure that the financial folks are doing the distributions correctly) said that was probably a coincidence. I said, it is absolutely a coincidence. And that Mom and Dad, being the Mathy folks that they are, would have noticed and appreciated that pattern. 

What I didn't say is that I, being a Psychology guy, recognize the pattern because, as a human being, we are hardwired to look for patterns, and then to ascribe significance to them. In this case, the pattern is a series of multiples of 3 (not, sadly, powers of 3, there was a six). The significance was only that it's a pattern our parents would have noted. I didn't get into the magic of threes, the holiness of threes, etc. 

We all know that 5 is the holy number. 

But this money comes at a cost. This is money I got because we don't have a living mother, anymore. And this pattern reminds me of that.  I appreciate the money, for what it will allow me to do. Immediately, it allowed me to have fried chicken for dinner, to pay some bills (not very many, the bank has to hold the lions share of it for a bit), and mostly to stop worrying about money so much. It also means i have to change how i act about money. How I plan and execute a budget. Execution being the difficult part. 

I'd rather have Mom. But this is what it is. Multiples of three.