Sorry to hear that, it sucks to loose any good friends. It sucks even more to loose those that are close to you. My condolences.
Awhile ago a friend of mine, Cory, had a stroke while out with his wife. He died a few weeks later from brain damage as a result of landing face-first on pavement. It was terrible loosing him because we talked all the time about Linux, technology and various things. We shared a lot of interests and collaborated on some Linux-related projects.
(BTW Cory was 21, I was 17 then)