I lost a friend about a year and a half ago. He just stopped responding to email, and I found out he had died about two months after.

Pancreatic cancer is a bitch -- he was gone in about three months, and he was (a) busy as fuck wrapping stuff up and (b) very sick for much of that period. He had all he could handle.

I did get to go to a memorial for him a few months later. I still miss him; one of the best programmers I know, and he got me into motorcyling 25 years ago.