Grief measures attachment without asking whether measurement is welcome.

The size of grief tells you the size of an attachment, and it delivers that information without permission or timing. Sometimes the number is larger than you expected, for a person you thought you had distance from, and sometimes it comes for a relationship that was complicated or unresolved. You do not get to decide what registers. That is unsettling, and it is also honest.

If your reaction surprises you, take it as information rather than as something to justify. Ask what that person actually held in your life that you had not counted. The answer usually explains the intensity.