Inconvienient Truth: Celebration of Death

Something that has always bothered me are the different angles on Death. Some people see it as something to celebrate, others see is as a time of mourning. Granted, these feeling are also based on who is dead, but still I don't like how celebrating the death of someone is socially accepted. The most recent example of this type of celebration is the death of Osama bin Laden. I remember coming down stairs the morning he died to my parents full of glee telling one another, THIS IS A TIME OF CELEBRATION!! TRULY SOMETHING TO CELEBRATE!! Even though it may be a good thing for the United States that he is dead, I still don't find a reason to truly celebrate his death. We have been trying to kill him for years yes, but why are we as humans excited when someone dies. Now lets talk about a relative or friend who dies. At a young age their death may be described as unexpected and tragic. This is by no means a reason to celebrate, this is a time of true mourning and grieving. And from the funerals I've been to when there is a young person in the coffin, it is not a happy and pleasant time. Now lets say the person is old, like in their 80s or 90s, In that case it depends on the family. Most people in the family will be calling their death a "celebration of their life," so not exactly happy but not exactly grieving. Instead it's a happy medium. In other cases, lets say the person dies from cancer or another serious illness, the death is a celebration of them finally being at peace, no more pain. But yet it is still a celebration. So it seems to be that people are mostly sad when the person is very young or dies unexpectedly. This is an assumption from my own experiences and observations, so it depends person to person, but when someone dies people tend to be sympathetic and understanding, and in times happy. Which is what brings me to the inconvenient truth of all of this: We are afraid of death. Yet we celebrate it... Doesn't make sense does it? Why are we so afraid of dying when we celebrate the death of some of the most important people in our lives? Don't you want to be celebrated? Don't you want to be recognized and remembered?? This is what bothers me so much about this topic. It is an on going paradox of fear and celebration. I still don't fully understand it all, all I know is that I'm scared.