There was an old man who went every day to the same café in a small town to have soup for lunch.
He said it was the very finest soup he had ever eaten, and it had increased his life expectancy.
When the old man finally died, there was a funeral with the usual elaborate gifts of flowers from his friends.
The man who ran the café, however, brought a huge pot of soup. “How can you insult the dead in this way?” asked the mourners. “Well,” said the cook, “he is as likely to taste the soup as he is to smell your flowers, and, besides, you all can take home some of the soup in his honor and eat it.
Perhaps you will live longer because of it.
He did.”
From that day forward, the people of that town brought soup to funerals and sent flowers to the living.