Today at 3 p.m. we will gather in a small, rural church in western Wisconsin and say goodbye to a woman we all loved.…

(Note: I wrote much of this post several months ago as I was preparing myself for mom’s upcoming passing.)…

It’s 4:14 a.m. After sleeping very little, I am sitting by mom’s bed, once again being serenaded by the early-rising whippoorwills as the dawn starts to peek out from behind the Wisconsin hills.…

The whippoorwills are singing in the dawn.…