First, perhaps most prominently, there was the dress I wore to my mother’s funeral: a cotton broadcloth shift dress, princess-seamed and with box pleats around the knee-length hem, that had been a hand-me-over from my sister-in-law. The dress was sleeveless, but I did wear high-heeled shoes, a black spandex slip, and stockings.

It was around 101 degrees outside.

It seemed a fitting tribute for a woman who—until the very last years of her life when two of her children (one Catholic; one Episcopal; none of us are still Baptist) got her in the habit of attending afternoon services wearing velour stretch pants — insisted that she must wear a dress, stockings, and a girdle to church, and therefore it was just easier to stay home.

But that’s not all: There is the Gap T-shirt with the scoop neck; the ankle length knit skirt; the faux-wrap dress that if you looked closely enough, you’d see had carefully concealed openings for breastfeeding—a leftover from when Anna Maria was born. A bathing suit from back in the 90s and filmy sarong. Two blazers for the days I go to work.

All black.

Everything else is white, although I’ve lumped in pale cream as well: the long-sleeved black and white flowered jersey dress (black on white) I wore to the visitation; the other black and white flowered dress (white on black); the ruffled ivory top.

Each morning for the past 38 days, I’ve woken up to the same narrow range of sartorial choices. At first I forget: I run my hand over the brightly-colored shawls in my dresser drawer; I espy my favorite turquoise Lilly Pulitzer sundress that I got on sale.

Today I felt the rush of cool air through the open door, a break in this July heat wave, a first portent of fall, and my first thought was a flirty ruffled white skirt with embroidered detail around the hem.

Then I remembered that the embroidery was green. So back to the long knit skirt, again.

Why am I doing this? Because every morning when I wake up, I remember that my mother is still dead. And because, among many ethnic faithful in the Orthodox Christian tradition, it is customary to observe forty days’ mourning after a death. One day at my old parish, Mrs. Economides’ husband died, and she has worn modestly elegant, simple black, every day since.

I realize again, as I write, that this is an observance that absolutely no one, and my mother least of all, urged me to undertake. I’m concerned about actually even bringing it up—as though it will seem that I’ve narcissistically turned my mother’s death into something that’s “all about me” instead.

Or even worse, that this is the mourning equivalent of trying to be a show-off about any other spiritual labor that’s supposed to be undertaken silently and soberly—like prayer and fasting.

But I want to reason through my reasons for undertaking the forty days, some of which are murky even to me, and this forum seemed as good enough a place as any.

For the majority of people, I realize, the notion of wearing mourning clothes, in 2011, seems an affected gesture, and profoundly beside the point: In modern parlance, you’re supposed to focus on the life of the person who died—not mourn their death; funerals are routinely re-named and re-cast as “homegoings” and “celebrations.”

I spent some time roving around on the internet about this issue, and turned up the following question on Yahoo Answers: A post, by a woman going by the handle of “Animal Rights Girl,” entitled, “How long should I wear black to mourn the death of my beloved mother?

My Granny died last night. She raised me as a child and was basically my mother. I loved her so much. My heart is broken. I feel very strongly about wearing black to mourn for her, but what is the respectable amount of time to dress in black? I simply cannot find this on the internet, and if anyone can direct me to a link, etc., I’d be eternally grateful. Many thanks to you all in this very difficult time for me. :o(

Among the “answers” that Animal Rights Girl received were the following:

I’m very sorry for you, but stop wearing black right after the funeral. The last thing granny would want is for you to not realize how important LIFE is, not death.

You should wear any color. You believe in that mess?

Sorry for your lost [sic].

But, you don’t have to wear black to mourn. You can write poetry, paint, get a tattoo of her. Wear black is only a formality [sic]. A tradition. Do more than tradition.

Do more than tradition. Realize how important LIFE is, not death. And yes, I do believe in the promise of eternity, the shattering of the boundaries between death and life, that the Incarnation inaugurated.

Yet death remains mysterious, a terrifying breach between our eternal hopes and the muck in which we are currently, well, mucking around in.

Frankly, I’m not totally sure how I feel about my mother’s death, or how much of her life I want to be celebrating. I am grateful that in her last years her Alzheimer’s became a strange gift that gave her a real measure of grace and peace, and each day, I’m startled anew by remembering so many sacrifices that she made for me, and for which I am grateful—surely the realization to which we hope all our children will arrive.

So for now, it is a good thing for me to feel set apart, strange, in the same old black clothes—For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part, but then shall I know, even as also I am known—my mother’s presence, almost palpable, sitting over my shoulder.

Afterward, I will pull out the pink shawl, will reveal my tanned shoulders to my husband in that turquoise dress. But the time is still for marking, and I’ve got seven more days.