I’m very sorry to hear of your sad situation. Your family and your dying relative are in our prayers.
I am not a psychologist and so cannot answer the question of what seeing someone dying of alcoholism will do to the emotional psyches of children. Your daughter will need to consult with a mental-health professional about that.
I can observe though that the ages you give for the children indicate that they are not “small.” The eldest is almost an adult and the three younger children are nearly teenagers. From a Catholic point of view, I can also say that “visiting the sick” and “burying the dead” are corporal works of mercy, and that compassion for the dying (the word compassion meaning to “suffer with”) is an important Christian moral value. If children are completely sheltered from suffering and death, particularly if doing so is framed as a response to the children’s comfort rather than the needs of the dying, how then are the children to learn compassion? Is it possible that these children, especially since they are not all that young, could be gently prepared to visit with and personally say goodbye to their uncle?
