Months passed, and there was still no need to use the gray shidduch notebook
MY
oldest daughter had been home from seminary for close to a year when I decided it was time to buy a shidduch notebook. The one I spotted at the dollar store seemed perfect for its intended function, a compact five-by-seven inches with a blue plastic cover (appropriate for information on boys). Would I need to fill all hundred pages before my daughter found her bashert? Or would I just fill a few pages, and then rip them out to use the notebook for my next daughter’s shidduchim? Only Hashem could answer that question.
On the first page, I listed the shadchanim I’d contacted as our initial hishtadlus. The next page listed some tidbits of advice from the shadchan who gave my daughter her first Yes.
Slowly, very slowly, the notebook filled up with pages and pages of notes on bochurim who were suggested for my daughter. I kept the notebook in my bedroom and made sure to hide it when I was in the midst of inquiries, because the sight of it would lead my younger children to groan, “You’re looking into another shidduch?”
There were often long breaks between suggestions, but each time one came, I’d find myself pulling the notebook out, hopeful about a new shidduch opportunity. In time, I learned to elicit more accurate information from sources by asking open-ended questions, requesting anecdotes, and listening to what they didn’t say. Sometimes we said No, sometimes we said Yes, but no bochur we were suggested was quite right for my daughter.
After about two years, when the notebook was two-thirds full, it disappeared for a few weeks. It was a siman miShamayim, I thought, because it seemed as though the last bochur whose information was listed must be The One, and I would no longer need the notebook. In the end, the notebook reappeared under my bed right after the shidduch broke off.
By this point, our second daughter was already home from seminary. I still hoped to finish one shidduch notebook before starting on the next one, but as the months passed, we realized it was not meant to be. After consultation with our rav and our daughters, I knew that it was time to buy a shidduch notebook for Daughter #2.
I went back to the dollar store and selected another notebook, this one with a gray cover. I tucked it into the drawer in my nightstand to await my second daughter’s first shidduch suggestion. But months passed, and there was still no need to use the gray shidduch notebook.
Rosh Hashanah arrived — the day when the Heavenly Books are open. We davened for health, parnassah, and shidduchim for our two daughters — the one with the almost-full shidduch notebook and the one with the empty one. Would this be The Year?
We soon discovered that this would be a year for the books, but not in the way we had hoped. We were stunned when I received a frightening medical diagnosis during a routine screening procedure. A few days later, my husband and I were rushing out to my first appointment with an oncologist and surgeon to discuss my upcoming surgery.
“Take along a notebook,” my husband said, and all I could think of was the still-empty gray notebook, just the right size for stashing in my pocketbook at doctors’ appointments.
And so, instead of shidduch prospects, the first pages of the gray notebook were filled with information about cancer staging, risks of surgery, and pre- and post-op instructions. Baruch Hashem, the surgery went well, and I hoped that this saga would end soon, so I could rip out these pages and use the rest of notebook for its intended purpose.
But when the pathology report came back, my heart sank with the realization that I was going to need several months of treatment. Now, the gray notebook filled up rapidly with information on chemotherapy protocols, side effects, treatment centers, and advice from specialists and patients.
Was it time to buy a new shidduch notebook for Daughter #2? I needed my daughters’ help to run the household and care for their younger siblings during the difficult months ahead. And I didn’t think I had the physical or emotional capacity to deal with shidduchim right then — much less engagements and chasunah planning. But I knew I had to be prepared to accept Hashem’s plan for my daughters, whatever it might be.
Instead of going to the dollar store, I searched Amazon for “5x7 notebook.” I selected the cheapest one available and was about to order it when I saw the delivery date — two weeks from tomorrow. What’s the difference? I thought. I haven’t needed it in six months — what’s the chance that I’ll need it in less than two weeks?
Still, I went back and chose another notebook. This one had a turquoise cover and was double the price, but it would be delivered within two days. I hoped that would be soon enough. Although I was holding the notebooks, I knew Hashem was writing the story, and His yeshuos could come in the blink of an eye.
And they did. Incredibly, by the time Rosh Hashanah approached a few months later, all my notebooks had been transformed. I had ripped out the first dozen used pages of the turquoise notebook and was using it as a wedding planner — for the chasunahs of both my daughters, just weeks apart.
As for the gray notebook? It had been newly designated to plan my seudas hodaah.
