Read this column in its entirety on ChicagoTribune.com. 

I was making dinner when I heard the scream — a wail from the living room, where my sons were watching TV while I was cooking.

I ran in and saw our crying 4-year-old in front of a seemingly innocuous video about black holes — one describing the bright supernova created after a massive star's death.

"Does it hurt the star when it dies?" he asked, pleading.

At moments like these, I'm limited as a parent, not just by my ignorance of astrophysics but also by my desire not to have my kids sympathize too deeply with everything from stars in other galaxies to the broccoli on their plates. So, I tried to explain that stars don't have feelings; I mumbled something about them being balls of gas and rock.

"They don't have souls or hearts or brains," I said, though he remained unconvinced. In his mind, the star had been a complex and beautiful thing, and now it was no more. It had died, and by all rights, we should be sad.

I tried, instead, to focus on the black hole. The dead star's remnant; the aftermath of its demise. That seemed to help, and strangely, it also reminded me of COVID-19, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and koliva.

Koliva, for the uninitiated, is a Greek Orthodox funeral dish of wheat berries, sugar, parsley and often almonds, pomegranate or raisins. The inspiration for it, according to the Rev. Chrysanthos Kerkeres of St. George Greek Orthodox Church, is Jesus' resurrection and John 12:24.

"Truly, truly, I say to you," it reads, "unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."

Though death is tragic, there is unquestionably more afterward, whether you believe in God or stupendously large black holes or nothing at all. Koliva, the resurrection of Jesus and black holes — they all help make sense out of death.

Think about a star's death: When a red supergiant has used up its fuel, it collapses under the weight of its own gravity. A flash of light — a supernova — explodes, blasting star fragments out into the universe. What's left is a black hole, with gravity so strong it can pull in everything, including light, around it.

It comforts me to know that when a star dies, it sends pieces of itself out into the universe, contributing to the birth of other planets and stars. And after the transformation of death, what's left behind can be even more powerful.

Scientists believe that a supermassive black hole might live in every galaxy, and some, including University of Illinois at Chicago professor James Unwin, recently suggested there could be a black hole at the far reaches of our solar system, one created at the start of all time and space.

Maybe a black hole — a death, in other words — lies at the start of all things. Maybe death is at the nexus of everything that matters.

Now, the koliva, which I'm making after my grandmother's death.

I'm also making koliva for the victims of the coronavirus, for DaJore Wilson and George Floyd. It helps me to think that their deaths will not be in vain — that they will, in the Bible's parlance, bear fruit.

I don't know whether Ginsburg, who was Jewish, would mind being included. Somehow I doubt it.

Either way, when I take a bite of the koliva and remember those who've died, I will think of them as one of those grains of wheat. Though they've fallen, I hope they may still have more to do. Maybe they'll be like a dying star.

Perhaps their most powerful contributions, in fact, are yet to come.

To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.

Photo credit: Genty at Pixabay