My Glory Was I Had Such Friends

In this moving memoir about the power of friendship and the resilience of the human spirit, Amy Silverstein tells the story of the extraordinary group of women who supported her as she waited on the precipice for a life-saving heart transplant.

Nearly twenty-six years after receiving her first heart transplant, Amy Silverstein’s donor heart plummeted into failure. If she wanted to live, she had to take on the grueling quest for a new heart—immediately.

A shot at survival meant uprooting her life and moving across the country to California. When her friends heard of her plans, there was only one reaction: “I’m there.” Nine remarkable women—Joy, Jill, Leja, Jody, Lauren, Robin, Valerie, Ann, and Jane—put demanding jobs and pressing family obligations on hold to fly across the country and be by Amy’s side. Creating a calendar spreadsheet, the women—some of them strangers to one another—passed the baton of friendship, one to the next, and headed straight and strong into the battle to help save Amy’s life.

Empowered by the kind of empathy that can only grow with age, these women, each knowing Amy from different stages of her life, banded together to provide her with something that medicine alone could not. Sleeping on a cot beside her bed, they rubbed her back and feet when the pain was unbearable, adorned her room with death-distracting decorations, and engaged in their “best talks ever.” They saw the true measure of their friend’s strength, and they each responded in kind.

My Glory Was I Had Such Friends is a tribute to these women and the intense hours they spent together—hours of heightened emotion and self-awareness, where everything was laid bare. Candid and heartrending, this once-in-a-lifetime story of connection and empathy is a powerful reminder of the ultimate importance of “showing up” for those we love.

What happens when the people you love become your only hope for survival?
A Moving Medical Memoir: A raw, unflinching account of waiting for a second heart transplant—twenty-six years after the first—and the terrifying, transcendent moments in a hospital room far from home.The Power of Showing Up: The incredible true story of nine friends who created a shared calendar, put their own lives on hold, and flew across the country to ensure Amy never spent a single night alone.A Found Family: Witness the "best talks ever" as women from every stage of Amy's life—some strangers to one another—forge a powerful connection while sharing a cot in a hospital room.An Inspirational Story of Resilience: A heartrending and ultimately life-affirming tribute to the women who provided the one thing medicine couldn't: the unwavering strength of friendship in the face of mortality.