Author Description

A woman's seminal role in the hospice movement. Twelve Weeks in Spring is the inspiring story of a group of people who came together to help a friend battling cancer, and thereby discovered their own unexpected strength and humanity. In February 1985, 68-year-old Margaret Frazer was told by her doctor she had terminal cancer. A retired, single woman, whose family was far away, she faced a situation all too familiar in our society -- a lonely death in a sterile hospital. Margaret's lifetime of giving to others was repaid, however, when many of the people she had touched made a remarkable choice. Most of these people were strangers to each other, and sometimes even to Margaret. The Friends of Margaret developed into a smoothly functioning hospice team that cared for Margaret in the comfort of her own home. Seventeen years after its initial publication, Twelve Weeks in Spring remains a powerful and clear-sighted account of a successful experiment in palliative care.