Same here, it was him who committed my first Django patch. He also came across as an incredibly nice person, with very thoughtful and kind comments. I've also read some of his ORM code and that was some of the nicest Python I've ever read.

Unfortunately I've never had a chance to meet him, and I haven't really been following the happenings in Django-world for a long time now, but I still felt really saddened seeing the news. Condolences to friends and family.