I have two beautiful children.  Zachary is 9 and Sophia is 4.  I can go on and tell you that no one told me that your first born would be up every 2 hours or that trying to potty train a girl is harder then potty training a boy.  But I did have people warn me and yes all that plus more had happened.  What no one prepared me for was to one day I would need to explain a death in the family to my kids.  I know it may not seem all that big of a deal but man is it ever.  Here is my story in a nut shell.  In the past few years we have moved a lot.  That was due to unemployment, moving for jobs and then on the last move, which was to live with my in laws in Maine.  (yes I know you are probably saying how am I still alive), my husband was out of work and I was working a per diem job and we just could not do it anymore up in Maine.  So long story short, last March we packed up and moved back to my home town and the house I grew up in to live with my parents.  My husband had a job already lined up as soon as we got back here and I was going on a job search as well.  So we took the 10 hour drive with two kids and two dogs from Maine to New Jersey.  It was great to be back with my family, my kids were always really close to my parents.  Especially my son Zachary.  He was best friends with my father, they did everything together.  So two weeks later my parents, my two kids and I went to a flea market on a Saturday.  My husband had to go to work so he did not come with us.  We were on the last isle of the flea market and my father collapsed right in front of my kids.  He had a massive heart attack and he was gone instantly.  April 12, 2014 that was the day that changed our lives forever.  I was never prepared for the cries and screams that came out of my kids.  My son just kept saying why today, and is he ok.  I couldn't tell him that I just felt my father pass away in my hands.  How could I tell him that his best friend is gone?  They wouldn't tell us anything until we got to the hospital.  As I came out of the hospital I saw my husband with my kids.  Sophia knew something had happened but I really couldn't explain it to her, but when I looked at my son, I just lost it.  No one can prepare you for this.  No one can prepare you for the moment in your life when you have to sit down an 8 year old at the time and tell him that his best friend, his grandfather that he loved so much is gone and never coming back.  No  one prepares you for the questions after wards of the whys, and what ifs.  I really wish that someone told me that one day you are going to have to do this and how much your heart is going to break.  How you will never be able to erase that memory of your sons look on his face and what he had to see out of your head.  I would have done anything that day to be able to make my kids forget that day forever.  No one told me.

​