Myself, I quit Facebook a long time ago, but when trying to recover my account to save my old pictures the website required me to upload a photo of my driver's license for account verification. I said screw that and have let my account sit idle ever since. I'm not sure if it will get deleted after so much time, but my mom used to tell me how a bunch of people were still posting birthday wishes on my old page long after I stopped using it.
I would recommend looking into other ways to contact him. You could also do some digging and look up their name to see if you find them on any public records. If they really did pass on you would likely find an obituary online, or possibly they are in jail (also public records). I would think they just quit social media, like in my case, and you might need to search through common acquaintances.
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