There are days in my life when things go swimmingly.

I find the right number of coins in my purse to feed the parking meter. The sun peeks out on my one and only laundry day. Sydney’s roaring traffic suddenly clears to give me a clear run home on a stormy night.

And then there are other days, like the one I had this time last year, when my sister passed away. Black is the only colour to describe it.

But do not fear. I am not about to ruin your double-shot macchiato with a tale of immeasurable sorrow.

I shall not whisper a word about how we took turns to hold her withering, soft hands as she lay in a coma, or how we picnicked cross-legged on the linoleum floor of her bleak hospital room reading out loud her ‘get well’ cards over the strident hum of the fluoro lights.

Or the number of perfect sunsets we counted while waiting for her to take her final breath (6).

No, with the anniversary of her death last week and with all of us donning our mourning clothes for a memorial mass on the weekend, I am remembering the week she died and the mundane but unenviable task of having to shop for black clothing to wear for 40 continuous days.

Even in our grief-stricken state, it seemed an easy enough mission; we would just make a beeline for the black racks. But, alas, as any self-respecting Goth (or David Jones Sales Assistant) might tell you, black is not a single colour.

We instantly rejected pieces we considered not black enough and, bizarrely, others for being too black. There were items made of polyester fabric mixes that were too clingy; other pieces revealed far too much cleavage. We quickly made a rule: if a dress or top required a special bra, it would be strictly off limits. No-one likes a slutty mourner.

And then there were the many bewildering adornments to black clothing; contrived injections of colour and interest by unimaginative designers at their wits ends. A sombre black jacket lined with gaudy pink polka-dots that would unfailingly fling open on a wild and windy afternoon at the cemetery? A suit embossed with black thread that would shimmer under the bright sun as if it were a disco ball the precise moment the body was lowered into a grave? Oh, no. That would not do at all.

Sales assistants were eager to recommend other colours our chosen black garments came in.‘Try it in red!’ they would chirp at my nieces who were considered too young to be wearing black, but not too young to be grieving the death of their mother.

The mindless chit-chat of well-meaning folk dramatically railroaded us several times. A bird-like woman in a neatly pressed black shirt whose nametag said ‘Dot’ insisted on playing the ‘what is your special event’ guessing-game. No, not a wedding. Not an engagement either. Guess again! Only to be shut down by my heartbroken niece muttering gently in her direction: ‘my mummy’s funeral’.

Choosing black stockings proved similarly baffling. The marketing of intimate apparel appears, unsurprisingly, to have been hijacked by go-getting undergrads. Why else would black tights be labelled raven or funereal? As if we needed to be reminded about where we would be heading in our cheerless black legs.

There were alarmingly few options when it came to shoes too. Sling-backs are for summer frolics and studded stilettos for clubbing, so we were left with black pumps – the last refuge of the plaintive hoof.

At the end of our miserable shopping expedition, heading home in abject silence with our gloomy garb, we were all too acutely aware of the week in black that had just passed and the 40 more days before us in black. But most of all, the years ahead, either in or out of black, always and forever, without her.

Ironically, my sister loved both wearing black and shopping so she would have embraced the 40 day black wardrobe challenge with a relish. There would have been no torment about shades of black or the ridiculous names for stockings or the thorny task of sidestepping jolly questions from clueless sales assistants about the big occasion we would be attending in our newly acquired black threads.

No, she would have sailed through it all; sparkling and full of hope about the next store and the myriad exciting black choices that lay ahead of us.

We would stop for coffee; there would always be cinnamon donuts. She would remind us to drink water, then she’d hunt down an acceptable toilet. ‘Wash your hands!’ she would laughingly order us all (grown women), as only a big sister could. And then we would march bravely on, fuelled on sugar and caffeine, to the next stop.

Instead, we found ourselves trudging intently through a shopping centre; parched, stomachs rumbling, legs aching. A small sad posse of poorly-prepared chumps.

Which is, I suppose, the essence of my angst here. It is not about the frustrations of shopping for black clothing at all. Shades of black – huh? Stupid sales assistants — get out of here! Designers on crack — so what’s new?

Standing in my parent’s backyard on the weekend, under a clear blue sky, among a sea of family and friends dressed head to toe in black, it became all too clear. It was this: her beautiful smiling face was not among theirs.

Twelve months on, she is simply missing, still so utterly and heartrendingly missing.

—

Regina Pritchard once had a blog where she posted photos of men who used to be in boy bands. she facebooked for 10 mins, formspringed for 5. myspace? NO. most recently, she quit Twitter in a fit of pique (don’t ask). she is back as @oncewasreggie. In real life, she works as a lawyer. Please, by all means, judge her.

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