How do people normally deal with being informed of a friends death?

Sometime last year, an old friend decided to take his own life after struggling to make it through mental illness and paranoia. Maybe we were not very close, but Ive knew his since my teenage years as a gamer, and sadly lost contact when I moved home and had a sort of falling out with the old circle of people I was in contact with.

As fate would have it, I by chance noticed his profile online and re-established contact in a friend list, and was able to strike up some conversation even right up to the month he was pronounced dead.

I regret the last chat logs were just meaningless mundane crap, and there was so much I wanted to talk about but never got the chance.

His last published article out of only 2 to his name showed a suspicious man with fictitious enemies he didn't need from postmen, to lawyers, to electricians, and even google search engine. Not from the same mind that was friendly, and talkative in the good old days.

Im over the worst of it now, but are there many others here who have had a rude shock through facebook when they suddenly notice a page has been archived as a memorial without you being told? it was especially distressing discovering the true reason why my messages were never being replied to