Paint It Black

 It’s one thing to wear black much or all the time when it’s your choice, your style, your preference and quite another when you’re mourning and/or going about the business of mourning.

What do folks traditionally wear in other cultures and why? What are my options here?

From Sacred-Texts, an archive of info on religion, mythology, legends, folklore, occult and other esoterica.

BLACK is the accepted colour throughout Europe. It expresses the solemn midnight gloom, the total deprivation of light and joy on account of the loss sustained. In Shakespeare's time the stage was draped with black during the performance of a tragedy. This accounts for the opening line in his "Henry VI.," "Hung be the heavens with black;" the "heavens" answering to our "borders" and "flies."

WHITE is the emblem of Hope, the Chinese colour of mourning. Mary, Queen of Scots, received the name of "the White Queen,"because she mourned in white for the death of her husband, Lord Darnley. White coffins for children are still popular; while in some parts of the country white hat-bands in mourning for the unmarried are the rule rather than the exception.

BLACK AND WHITE STRIPED express Sorrow and Hope. This is the mourning colour of the South Sea Islanders.

The ancient Egyptians mourned in YELLOW, "the sere and yellow leaf." So do the Burmese, whose monastic habit is the same colour. In Brittany widows' caps are invariably yellow.

PALE BROWN, the colour of withered leaves, is the Persian mourning colour.

The inhabitants of Ethiopia affect GREYISH BROWN, the colour of the earth, to which the dead return.

In Syria and Armenia SKY-BLUE is the colour of mourning, indicative of the assurance that the deceased has gone to heaven.

PURPLE was formerly the mourning colour of all Christian princes. All the kings of France mourned in purple. This mourning colour of Christian princes in general, and of the princes of the Roman Catholic Church in particular, has been derived from the purple garment which the Roman soldiers. put about our Lord, and mockingly saluted him as "King of the Jews."

In Victorian times the entire house wore black. From Literary-Liaisons:

The deceased's family then set about preparing both house and humans for the ritual of mourning. The entire household went into "deep mourning." Drapes were drawn, clocks stopped and mirrors covered. The staff donned mourning attire. Female servants wore black work dresses and caps and male servants wore black gloves and cravats or ties. All correspondence was done on black-edged writing-paper and envelopes, with black seals. Even calling cards were reprinted with black edges. The width of the black band narrowed as mourning time passed.

So then, how long am I expected to wear black? From Tradition in Action, a Catholic site,  funeral and mourning etiquette:

For a widow: one year of heavy mourning, followed by six months of half mourning, and six months of light mourning, for a total of two years. If a young widow meets someone whom she considers could be a proper suitor after the first year, she is not required to remain in mourning.
For a widower: one year of heavy mourning, six months of light, for a total of 18 months
For the death of parents and children: six months of heavy mourning, six months of half, three months of light, for a total of 15 months.
For the death of grandparents and siblings: four months of heavy mourning, four months of light: for a total of 8 months
For the death of aunts and uncles, or nieces and nephews: one month of full mourning, one month of light, for a total of two months.

OK, she writes that these were the ‘old rules’ from Catholic Europe. What’s current?

For a spouse - a year and a day;
For a parent or child – six months;
For a grandparent or sibling - three months.

But now, wearing black may not be the done thing:       

With the invasion of the Cultural Revolution - with the practical abolition of the suit and tie as daily apparel for men and a corresponding loss of fine tailleur for women, mourning became much more difficult to maintain. Indeed, how can a person wearing sports shirts, blue-jeans or Bermudas demonstrate that he or she is mourning some relative? Would the solution be to wear black? In principle, yes, but another problem arises with the modern day “gothic” wave, which embraces the almost exclusive wearing of black and certainly tends toward Satanism.

Wow, the article’s author needs to get out a bit more. Honestly, the whole Rosemary’s Baby/Omen/Exorcist bit is pretty passe and hokey now. Perhaps she could get worked up about spandex belly shirts, skinny jeans and Ugg boots. Those have a far stronger whiff of all that satan-y type stuff -- certainly much more than a person dressed all in black wearing, egregious amounts of eyeliner.

OK, possibly that’s just me.
I guess, once again, I'm just going to invent my own mourning custom/style. I think I’ll gonna celebrate my mother’s life with color and joy.

Oh yeah, I’m breakin’ out the tie dye.

Lucy would def approve.