Perhaps, writersoul, you might have said the same thing as your friend when hearing of our great loss on the petira of Rav Wosner recently?
Or when Rav Eliezer Yehuda Waldenberg (the Tzitz Eliezer) was niftar in E”Y a few years ago?
Or Rav Michel Feinstein, a great but not so “famous” Tzaddik who was niftar a few years before that? Or his wife, Rebbetzin Lifsha, the daughter of the Brisker Rav, related to Rav Aharon Lichtenstein by marriage?
Think of it not as sad, but as an opportunity to tell others about what you learned from the niftar, and how his life and teachings were an inspiration to you.