Reading all of the standard works in one year

I am trying to move away from writing about grief. 

The tricky part is that I am not sure that I am done with it. First of all, Mom is still alive, so I know there is another chapter. In addition, I realized I have another question or two that I need to answer for myself. I hope I get that done before.

Without being quite ready to start something new, this is an easy one to go over in case anyone is curious.

I decided I wanted to read in each of the books weekly, so the first thing I did was take the number of pages of each and divide by 52.

Well, that doesn't work great for the Pearl of Great Price, and the Old Testament is definitely the longest, so this is what I am doing:

Monday: 8 pages in the Old Testament
Tuesday: 8 pages in the New Testament
Wednesday: 8 pages in the Old Testament
Thursday: 10 pages in The Book of Mormon 
Friday: 8 pages in the Old Testament
Saturday: 6 pages in the Doctrine and Covenants

Sunday was going to be more for Sunday School reading, so that I was still keeping up, but it has ended up being for different things.

For example, there are 60 pages in the Pearl of Great Price. Instead of reading about one page per week, I started with the first five chapters of Moses, then read through to where Enoch would be in the Old Testament, read the rest of Moses, went through to Abraham, and read Abraham. 

Those nights were more than ten pages, but it felt like it could be reasonably done in one night. I think it worked.

That started mostly as a coincidence. The first Sunday night I was not starting anything yet, so I thought I would just get Moses 1-5 out of the way.

I am sure there will be times when my Sunday reading will relate to the Gospel Doctrine lesson, but they are still in Genesis so I feel like I am doing okay.

I have also given different weeks to catching up. For example, I read an extra ten pages in The Book of Mormon one week, because there are 530 pages and a reasonable schedule will leave me with extra pages at the end of the year. Also, I started the Doctrine and Covenants with Joseph Smith History (more Pearl of Great Price reading) and the testimonies of the three and eight witnesses, so I needed a few extra pages there.

I have also used the extra nights to re-read Revelation because I was trying to find something. A project like this stirs memory and raises questions; the chance to explore is good.

I am getting a lot of ideas for other areas of focus; we will see what happens in future years. For now, I like how this is working out.

In addition to getting ideas from spending time in all of the works, I am getting ideas from Ensign reading too, which is going much better.

Reading a few articles daily as opposed to a whole issue Saturday gets you through the magazines at the same rate, but it feels completely different and much better. 

That is one other thing that should be working better. While I have learned a lot from various readings of the Old Testament, there are places where I get bogged down. Now looking at the building of the tabernacle, only reading eight pages per day and doing something else the next day has made it much better. I expect this to continue through Leviticus and Numbers... the rest of the Pentateuch, actually.

It will also really help with Psalms.

So this is working out. I have had some pretty ambitious goals for things I wanted to study, and finding that I can achieve them makes many other things look possible. 

Processing a loss

The first thing I need to note is that I have not ruled out doing a multi-part series on a different Joy Harjo poem, "For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in its Human Feet." 

Harjo has multiple poems that I have found extremely helpful and moving. 

In "Washing My Mother's Body", she was not able to do so physically, so she goes back in mind and imagines the process. 

The poem had made me feel that there would be something lost if I was not able to do wash and dress my mother's body. I worked out that other things mattered more, but was there still something to learn about her mental process?

She starts that she is doing it because of 

          "what needs to be fixed
 so that my spirit can move on

                So that the children
                  and grandchildren
       are not caught in a know of regret they do not understand."

Perhaps the first important thing is that this does appear to be for the living.

Then the memories start to come. 

They come from physical objects, like using a pan that her mother used for washing babies, now to wash her mother with the care that you would give an infant.

There are memories of the dresses. Her mother bought a lot of them, but that was because as a child she only had one dress that she had to wash out each night.

Had she always realized that was the case, and was remembering it once more? Or had some truths just started to become clear?

There is another pot there, that had come from her mother's mother. Generations are connected in legacy.

That includes Harjo's memories of raising her children. 

There are memories of things that could be trivial, like her mother being shuffleboard queen at a local bar.

There are more serious memories, like a scar that happened when her mother was burned at work because her boss wouldn't listen.

There were memories of how hard she worked for her children.

      "The story is
      all there,
      in her body,
      as I wash her 
      to prepare her..."

She finishes the washing and brushes her mother's hair, kisses her forehead, and is wishing her off on her journey. Commending her to angels, she remembers a last bit of her favorite perfume. 

So many little things come back and seem so important. 

   "and then I let her go."

On the other blog I have been writing about these songs I have put together and how they relate to my mother's life and our relationship. 

I did have a very long journal session writing about her life, but then I would write about the songs -- first in the journal, then in the blog -- going over the details again and again.

In fact, I did make connections I had not realized before, including similarities we have that I might not have realized.

I don't want to be caught in regret. 

I have tried to live in a way that would not lead to lots of regrets, but under examination things can come together or fall apart. 

Things have been coming together. 

We can bury or burn our dead (there are additional options now). 

We can try burying our feelings or burning relationships. That can be harder to successfully pull off.

A final beautiful reminder from going over the poem again is that its okay if you didn't do it at the time. You can still go back to remember and release.

Or my way; trying to have it all done in advance.

There's still another step, I think, which will be drafting an obituary for her. 

Two visits ago, it felt like a real possibility that I might not see her again. Then I saw her yesterday and I am pretty sure there will be another visit. 

I have to assume when it is the last visit that I will not know, but that's true most of the time.

Tell people you love them. Live with openness and integrity. 

Don't stay caught in knots of regret.

Related posts:

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2026/01/the-high-cost-of-dying-part-3.html  

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2026/02/january-daily-songs.html 

The times, they are a-changin'

This is still about death, though differently. 

(Also -- spoiler alert -- I am pretty sure there will be another post about grief.)

As part of the cost-of-dying posts, I had mentioned various traditions, with some thoughts about where they come from and whether they still serve.

Once upon a time it was very normal that people would place obituaries in the newspaper. 

They would also put wedding announcements with pictures, and sometimes even anniversary announcements. 

As a child I did not look at the obituaries much, but I remembered looking at the brides to see if there was anyone we knew, and if the dresses were nice... things like that. 

I did not realize that these were paid, like want ads and personals; it was just how things were done.

Of course, at the time we were also getting a daily newspaper in print. When that stopped, I missed the comics and crosswords more than I missed the wedding announcements. 

One thing with the obituaries is that if it was someone I knew, I wanted to know that it happened and how and details about their life. When I did look, it was mostly strangers.

It wasn't particularly efficient for keeping tabs on people that you knew but with whom you did not regularly cross paths. 

Social media is more efficient.

It still has drawbacks. Some people don't get on much or post much. There are things about how the algorithm pushes the feeds where a lot of people find it alienating. Still, I know more about people with it than without it, and I do like and care about people.

When my mother dies, I am going to post an obituary on her Facebook page. 

She has one. It was something that I thought could be kind of therapeutic in the early days of the onset of her dementia. It didn't work out. However, we have enough friends in common -- and maybe I should tag my siblings and self -- that it will get the word out to some. 

I've mentioned already that there is a plan for contacting various friends and relatives directly, but for the general news, I think that's a reasonable way of doing it.

Most funeral homes have online obituaries now, though there is a cost for that too. (There is also a cost for CaringBridge for updates on illnesses. I guess it makes sense but I don't like that.) 

I believe the newspapers still post obituaries, though I suspect the reach is much lower.

For our circumstances, I think Facebook is the best source for a general notification. The personal notifications will include phone calls, e-mail messages, Facebook direct messages, texts, and maybe even the regular post. Those are all based on how often we communicate with the people involved and how we normally communicate, but also how much of a blow it will be so how much cushioning it will need.

That list includes neighbors where I could easily run across the street, but I am assuming I will be falling apart and won't want to carry that outdoors.

That is connecting to others on a very specific subject, but a lot of different types of relationships and methods of communication come into play.

My main point is that things don't happen the way they used to, so I can't simply follow old patterns.

Some of these ways may even be better, but it takes thinking about it to find how to go forward.