Coats and Scarves

Why do we adorn our dead?  It is not that we believe we are providing our loved ones with supplies for the after-life.  Yet we lovingly drape flowered scarves around Grandma Mae’s fragile neck and wrap a worn coat around that nameless, battered boy who was found in the bushes.  We don’t even know if they want these things.  Maybe they’re going to Hell and they’ll be too hot.  But who can say?  Perhaps they appreciate the small offering.  I guess we do it to provide comfort.  But who are we really comforting?