Hi Connie: I am so, so sorry you have to go through this horrible experience, too. I lost my father to emphesema, brought on by smoking for years... it's been 11 years and it still feels like yesterday. It's hard to keep yourself "pulled together" in front of the kids, I know. I was closest to my father, and I went ballistic when he unexpectedly died. I lost my mind, and the kids remember me running around the house breaking things and screaming, screaming, screaming. Unless you have a babysitter, the kids are going to see you grieve in your own way, and greive you MUST do, so just DO IT, don't hold back, let it flow. They will survive, they won't be traumatized, so don't worry about that. My kids remember the experience of seeing me lose my mind over my father's passing, and they're none the worse for the wear, as they are now 20, 18, and 17. They were little when it happened. I still remember seeing my mother sitting on her bed one morning, I'd never seen her cry. When I asked her why she was crying, she told me her father, my Pa, had died. I remember crying with her on her bed, wailing with her, I still get weepy thinking of how sad it was. But, it was a part of life, it IS a part of life. Greiving, losing people we love, it's an inevitable part of life. To keep the experience from your kids, no matter how young, is cheating them, isn't being real. They will remember how deeply you love your mother, they will remember how deeply THEY love her, too. Play tapes if you have them for your 2 year old so she will not forget her, if you can. I wish I had my Dad on film. I have a cassette of my Dad playing his guitar and singing, I play for my two young ones, so they'll know his voice, at least. Life and death are all intertwined, this time in your life is part of your history and also your kids, live it as you need to, to get by. As days go by, it becomes more bearable. It never goes away, the hurt won't go away. You just can deal with it a little better as every day passes. I still cry just thinking of the words in my head, the morning I heard the news that changed my life. Word for word. I think of it, and I cry as if it was that very day: "Kerri, there's just no easy way to tell you this. Your father passed away last night". I could just throw up thinking those words, remembering how I felt. How I ran around the house screaming, running into walls headfirst, I wanted to die to be with him, it was just horrible. I'm sure the kids were a little freaked out. But I didn't hide it from them, I didn't think I should. I was still there for them, a basket case or not. Be there for your's, too. But do the greiving you need to do, don't deprive yourself.