I found an excellent article on death of a child, and on grieving in Issue # 688 of Vanity Fair, beginning on page 113.  Joe Biden talks about the death of his son Beau, lost to cancer.

A brief quote - page 118:
"  . . the second year (after a death) is harder than the first. That's a fact. Anybody who's gone through serious tragedy, the first year, there are so many people around you propping you up. But after a year, your family, your close friends - I mean it's normal, they've got to get back to their lives. But then the reality of it sets in, in a profound way."

I am beginning my fourth year of grieving. Sometimes, I do well; sometimes I still tear up so much that I cannot see.

I wonder if I may have depended too much on her for my identity; moving to her home place; attending her home church; associating with her family, neighbors. acquaintances on a daily-weekly basis. When she was no longer around, the local folk quickly moved on. I have not. Still.

Grieving after Death, What to Expect after the death of a loved one

I found the best description of grieving I have read in a while in Michelle Obama's autobiography, "Becoming", beginning in Chapter 11.
"It hurts to live after someone has died. It just does. It can hurt to walk down a hallway or open the fridge. It hurst to put on a pair of socks, to brush your teeth. Food tastes like nothing. Colors go flat. Music hurts, and so do memories. You look at something you'd otherwise find beautiful - a purple sky at sunset or a playground full of kids - and it only somehow deepens the loss. Grief is so lonely this way."
  "(My brother and I argued over our father's casket choices.)  We were yelling for reasons that had nothing to do with the actual argument. Neither of us was invested in the outcome.
    We were having an absurd and inappropriate argument because in the wake of death every single thing on earth feels absurd and inappropriate."