Hudson River suicide mom Lashanda Armstrong laid to rest today

(CBS/WCBS) NEW YORK - Lashanda Armstrong, the woman who drove her minivan into the Hudson River with four children inside, will be laid to rest today.

Pictures: Mom drives into river, kills 3 kids, 1 escapes

Her three children who died with her will not be buried with her because their father wouldn't allow it, reports CBS station WCBS.

The father's decision only aggravated the Armstrong family's grief said the station.

"Those are her kids, they came from within her. Those are hers, they should be with her," family friend Michael Lake said to the station.

Family and friends gathered at The First Baptist Church in Spring Valley with mixed emotions.

"She felt like it was a cruel world. That's what she felt like, like why leave them behind," family friend Katrina Whatley told WCBS. "But we know that that wasn't a good thing to do."

"I just wish she had considered, had taken another option but who am I to say. You never know the reason," family friend Doris Davis said to the station.

Friends say Armstrong was distraught the day she killed herself and her children. Police said that prior to killing herself and her children she was involved in a domestic incident with her boyfriend Jean Pierre minutes earlier. Pierre is the father of the three slain children, the station reports.

"I have been inaccurately portrayed as being directly responsible for the tragedy," Pierre said in a statement Wednesday. "If I could, I would have changed some things in my past."

Pierre is not planning on attending the funeral.