Life and Death

Why do we have to like someone in death and cherish what they accomplished when we didn't in life because they weren disliked then? Why do we forget someone's personality in death and only cherish what talent they had and gave us? Why do we overlook someone's many flaws and faults in death when in life we found them unlikeable, even hated, for the same characteristics?

I ask because I'm always amazed how we raise someone in death to almost icon status when we didn't in their life. We're often quickly blind and forgetful about anyone's bad, especially the worst, side after their death. And when people raise the issue about them, they're often verbally pummelled for criticizing the dead.

They didn't change, we did. They were who they were in life and death doesn't change anything beyond them being dead. It doesn't change who they were or their life. Yet, we love to be kind, if not totally forgetful. And we hate their detractors for being honest and truthful about them while making excuses for those same qualities in the them.

If you didn't like someone when they were alive, why should be like them when they're dead? Why should we think about them any different in life and in death? Is is human nature or just maybe we do this because we want the same when we die?