Reactions of three siblings, ages seven and a half, six, and three, to the departure of their father were studied through notes kept by the mother over a three-year-period. Feelings of rejection, guilt, fear of abandonment, and anger were spontaneously reported by the children. Conspicuously absent, at least to the mother's observation, were any signs of longing for or missing the absent father, until she herself conceded over a year later, that she missed her husband. There followed a period of pronounced sadness for the children, with curiosity about death, and frank acknowledgment of feelings about what was missing. The angry and guilty reactions abated concomitantly. The sense of family re-established itself, after previously having been compromised by the children's identifications with the absent father.