Oddly similar thing happened with my Uncle's will when he passed. He never married, died of cancer (skin cancer metastasized pretty much everywhere) lived alone his whole life, worked as a foreman at a pig farm for literally 55 years, only ever held two jobs.

My dad & their other brother would take turns having him for christmas. He had a terrible stutter so as a child I had trouble talking to him (kids are idiots), but when I grew up I loved him coming, he was clever but so quiet.

When he passed, and we dealt with the Will etc, it turns out he'd been a savvy investor and had ended up with a large sum of money, everyone was so surprised.

It's all gone to my father/their other brother, but the surprising part, and what made me cry, was if my father/his other brother had predeceased, i was going to get the full 50%, and my two cousins would get 25% each, instead of splitting it 33/33/33.

Apparently this caused a minor furore when he was writing the will (with his brothers help) as my cousins father wanted to know why it wasnt to be split evenly (at the time no one knew the amount ofc). And apparently he said something that i'll never forget, and makes me cry just thinking about it.

"His need is greater than your own"...I've been disabled since I was around 10 (20 years+ now).

Someone I basically hardly knew, and saw maybe twice a year, changed his will intending to make sure I was financially secure for life.

Ever since I heard that I've applied it to pretty much everything, "Who's need is greater" not "me first".

It's stupid how much I miss him considering I hardly knew him. I still buy the little wooden puzzles he liked at christmas, just as a sign he's not forgotten. I hate the damn things but I still spend as much time as I need to solve them.

Wall of text, only tangentally related, sorry about that, turned into catharsis.

tl;djr Uncle died, Will had me in it for a large sum unexpectedly, made me cry.