Three's No More

I am a little sad this weekend - with good measure. Just found out a dear, dear family friend died this weekend. I'm also a little out of sorts and my brain seems fidgety - semi-good reason for this. I'm trying to think of the other two now or racking my brain trying to figure out if this was number 3 and the cycle is done or possibly number 2...but mostly dreading the feeling that I'm back on a new cycle and this is number 1. I'm not superstitious by any mean, I don't believe in curses or jinxes, I don't knock on wood or throw salt over my shoulder. Ok, I HAVE thrown salt over my shoulder but only because it's fun to throw food over your shoulder. But there is one pattern that does seem to hold true and that is that death comes in 3's. Is it a superstition? I don't know. What I do know is that I can't think of any other two deaths in my circle so this is number 1 in the grouping meaning there are two more to go. That has me very discombobulated. I don't like this train of thought because as I get older and my family members are aging, I'm going to be dealing with this more and more. Whoever came up with death in 3's anyway? And what were they doing that they noticed people were dying in groupings of 3? And how close together does it need to be? Could it be over a years time? Two years? Is it just for people in my circle or people I hear about in general? Does it have to be someone I care about or are there levels of removal like a family friend compared to a 3rd cousin I met once? And who's to say it doesn't come in 6's? Or 9's for that matter? Again, we are back to the time frame issue. So while I said that the pattern seems to hold true, I think it holds true because we THINK it holds true. We've heard the school of thought so we try to find those connections. If we had never heard the theory that death comes in 3's, would we still try to group them together? There are just so many unanswered questions and too many holes for me. No more 3's. I don't accept. The rules seem ambiguous and undefined so I'm not going along with that train of thought anymore.