thoughts on hearing about someone's death

I learned this afternoon that a rather public figure in the American Council of the Blind died recently. I don't know the exact details--I missed the initial post. From what I have been able to gather, some quite disparaging remarks have been made in various places about him. This doesn't really surprise me--he was quite vocal about his opinions and his lifestyle options weren't things all people would emulate. But he was a person who put his principles into action, and that is something I appreciated about him. I will miss seeing his posts on the ACB-L list, and I'm sad that people think it all right to speak negatively about a person at the time of death.