The Old Man, like the French, believed that black was the only appropriate color...

The Old Man, like the French, believed that black was the only appropriate color to display and wear in order to show grief.
I know Má, black is the color of our hair, the color of our irides with the coming of dusk , the color of a restful night's sleep, of coal rice, of tamarind pulp, of the unbroken shell of a thousand-year egg. How can this black be the color of sorrow? Underglazed with red river clay, deep water blue, high-in-the-tree-top green, black is luminous, the color that allows us to dream.