fifty-seven fridays: losing our daughter, finding our way

＂Myra Sack’s memoir is a deeply personal look at her family’s resilience in the face of the unimaginable. Fifty-seven Fridays will help so many others find strength.＂ --Sheryl Sandberg, former COO, Facebook

Sack is a 30-year-old new mom, married to the love of her life, Matt Goldstein, who is a doctor. They live in Boston because Matt’s residency in internal medicine took them there. She has just finished her MBA. They’ve bought a house. Life is unfolding beautifully.

Then one day their beautiful 1-year-old daughter Havi is diagnosed with a debilitating neurodegenerative disease called Tay-Sachs. Soon after this, Sack and her husband discover that despite their extensive pre-conception genetic testing, an error was made by their physician, making the diagnosis possible. Then they’re told: Havi has about twelve months to live.

Against all advice and norms, they decide to celebrate Havi’s short life rather than intervene in order to prolong it. They vow to show her as much of the world as they can. They embark on a journey that begins on the California coast and continues back to Boston, surrounded by friends and family who relocate to be in Havi’s orbit. Along the way, they transform Friday night Shabbats into birthday parties--＂Shabbirthdays＂--to replace the birthdays Havi will never have. After her death, they continue to center their lives on existing right on the edge between the physical world and the unknown world beyond it.

Myra Sack’s lifelong passion for sports and social justice brought her to SquashBusters, Inc. in Boston in 2013. She is currently a senior advisor there, and was previously chief program and strategy officer. She earned an MBA in social impact from Boston University in 2018. Since Havi’s diagnosis and death, Sack has trained as a certified compassionate bereavement care facilitator with Dr. Joanne Cacciatore, the founding director of Selah Carefarm and the MISS Foundation. Myra lives with her husband Matthew Goldstein, an immunologist, and their second daughter, Kaia, in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. Visit her website at myrasack.com.