Summary

Chapter 3 marks a turning point in the book, opening with a man named Peter intoning a prayer: “I see your grief, I acknowledge your pain,” he tells Jayson (87). Peter is a stranger to Jayson as well as the reader; they have just met “eleven seconds ago” at a grief group in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, at a place called the Kripalu Institute (87). Six months after Greta’s death, Stacy and Jayson are seated next to each other on folding chairs in a grand hall, listening to a seminar entitled “From Grieving to Believing,” hosted by a “grief expert” named David Kessler (89). In addition to Kessler, there is a medium named Maureen Hancock present, who Stacy and Jayson were curious to see. Listening to Kessler speak about grief in banalities, Jayson does feel reassured: “grief is healing, healing is grief—these blandishments sooth me...