"B'shert 7"

       I found my note which said this and couldn't recall what it meant.

       It finally came back to me:  I'd seen it on a license plate; it must have been the 7th request for that personalized plate.

       Good, popular.  "B'shert" [buh-SHAIRT] is Yiddish:  a soulmate, a predestined life partner.  Still, a surprising license plate.

       I surprised myself once by using the word in a public setting, at the one-year date following a good friend's funeral.  I spoke of Abe to other friends and relatives gathered, and mentioned that we had in common our age; that we both liked performing, he acting, I reading aloud; and that we'd both met our b'shert outside native ground, so to speak (they were non-Jewish).

        But clearly, "b'shert" had applied, with all our hearts in all four cases.