THREES

Wishes.
Blind mice.
Kings of orient.

Stooges.
Dog nights.
Cartoon duck nephews.

. . . and deaths.
But why?
Why do things, including deaths, come in threes?

Jude's sister, dad and mom all passed away during residency.
Becky and Jeff over this summer have grieved two grandmothers and another close family member.
For me, two patients in my MAT program and an old friend, Threresa, all passed away in the last month.

Maybe 'Why do deaths seem to come in threes?' is a better question.
The three examples above, frustratingly, don't follow a rigid time limit. One grouping occurred within 15 months, another within 3 months and one within 4 weeks.
Then it must be something else.

Maybe squeezing them into an aphorism is a way to wrap our heads around the impossible-to-grasp horrors of being alive, being human, attaching so intricately to other humans.
A little control.
A little hope that it's over.

. . .

So how do I plan?
How to I know when it's over, and when another group is beginning?
If there is no objective meaning to all this, at least we have the threes thing, right?

My logical brain is trying so hard to sort this out and categorize. Make it all make sense, because my self so prefers thinking to feeling. I will do anything to get out of feeling. Ignore, sleep, run, laugh, distract, any number of ways.

I'm not unique in this, I know.
That's the way of the human...
...and that's why the human needs the therapist.

I don't say "It was God's Will."
I don't wonder what sacrifice I forgot to make to which deity. 
But I do often think to myself, "Things come in threes."

Now that thinking doesn't cut it, I guess I better start feeling again.