Why do you bother to bring flowers and light candles in the cemetery? Do you do it for the living or for the dead?

It's something I am wondering about.
I know it's become tradition, like a means to gather with family and respect the dead.

But the dead are dead. Inside the tombs, they're bones. Inside the urns, they're ashes.

I mean no disrespect. I just genuinely like to understand. Deep down, if there is no one who would see you do it or who would expect you to do it, would you still do it? And why?

Would you do it for the living? For yourself? For the dead? Why?

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Pretzel · 70-79, M

reminds me of a story about two men delivering their gifts a tthe headstones

one laid a bowl of rice
the other a bundle of flowers

one man laughed and asked "when do you think they will eat that bowl of rice?"

the other man said "when your loved one arises to smell the flowers"

it is a way of honoring the dead. some people visit the gravesite to speak with or remember their loved one.

we don't do well with death - probably because it reminds us that we will be in that box sooner than we wish