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Headmate death is a relatively contested topic. Some people believe it can never happen.
"How can an alter die when they're a part of your brain?"
Some people, like ourselves, are steadfast that it can happen. We don't experience plurality as residing in or originating from the brain, and other spiritual systems and soulbonders may agree with that. Some systems may experience symbolic headmate death, representative of a significant change or emotion. Some systems consider dormancy to be equivalent to death, and are frustrated at the common refrain that "they can always come back, so it's fine".
When we first started experiencing headmate death - or perhaps first realised that was what had happened - we were unprepared. Even before this, we believed headmate death could occur; who are we to judge a subjective internal experience? But we had no idea what to do, and we knew going to the only plural community we knew of - the r/plural subreddit - would yield the same result as always.
"How can an alter die when they're a part of your brain? It's just dormancy, and dormancy isn't permanent, so it's okay. Maybe you could hold some sort of symbolic funeral though :)"
We thought that there must be resources out there. We went to our usual place, lb-lee's dreamwidth, and found what we thought would be a longer essay and was instead a few paragraphs of personal anecdote. Very helpful. (No shade to lb-lee, I understand it's a difficult topic and there's no obligation to write 5000 words about it.)
Later we stumbled onto Kinhost, and Multiplicity: The Missing Manual. It had a page specifically dedicated to headmate death! The rest of its pages were pretty high quality and had clearly been made while trying to think of a variety of perspectives, very much unlike our experiences in the plural subreddit. We got ourselves into a good mindset and clicked on the page.
"Residents of a plural system may disappear or die, or may be killed, but we have no evidence that such "death" is permanent. [...] None of this makes their passing or absence less painful for everyone involved, and because they can be missing for years it is small comfort that they will return."
What we needed was a guide, a manual; something to steady ourselves and figure out what we were meant to do. But the entirety of the resources we could find on the topic were:
This page is intended to fill that gap. As such, it will specifically be about permanent, 'literal' headmate death. We haven't experienced and thusly feel unqualified to talk about other forms of death, like the death of external residents or members permanently leaving the system. We also don't have any personal experience with inner suicide, inner traumatic injury; hospitals; or medical care, or explaining to littles or other headmates who can't understand.
I'm sorry if you need resources on those things. I haven't found any. I hope this page has something useful for you anyway.
It's important to develop a framework of what death - and life - actually is in your system, so that you have ways to understand death, to predict it, and to prevent it.
These frameworks will not be the same across all systems. They may not even be similar. They also don't need to be unique; you can borrow frameworks of death from external sources like media and reshape them for yourself. If you have a positive relationship with religion or your culture, you can also look for frameworks and understandings of death there.
There are a couple things I recommend you understand as a fundamental basis. You can expand on all of this later.
These are hard questions. It's not easy to think about why your headmates die, or what happens when they do. But having this understanding will allow you to make lots of other preparations for death and to do things in a way that makes sense for you.
As an example, in one system with a complex headspace, death may be very similar to physical death; injury or damage to the body, followed by cessation of vital processes. For non-human headmates these vital processes may be different. A robot, for example, would be unlikely to stop breathing or have a dangerously low heartrate, but they may display lethargy, confusion, or poor motor co-ordination. Dead headmates in this system may thusly have corpses in the inner world.
For another system without a headspace, or whose headspace is unrelated to basic functions of the system, death may be very different from physical death. Injury or damage, if it occurs, may be apparent in losing certain capabilities, like the capability for use of language (instead communicating through thought or imagery), ability to switch, or physical symptoms when fronting like immense distress. There would be no wound on the headmate's internal self to judge their health by, and they may pass without the others knowing they were dying at all. In this system, dead headmates may have more 'metaphorical' tells; odd feelings when trying to contact them, an empty or unmoving space where their presence should be, or headmates highly attuned to internal processes being anxious or upset at their mention.
It's very possible for a headmate to not be dead, but for certain headmates to still become anxious or upset at their mention for other reasons. I hope you are able to use your best judgement in those cases; the vast majority of methods on this page rely on functional communication.
Some headmates may disagree about certain things here. They may disagree with the consensus that death is a natural process and proclaim that it only occurs when the system doesn't care enough about a given headmate. Sometimes these disagreements are simply someone having a different perspective - I know at least one of our headmates has radically different beliefs about death than the rest of us - and sometimes they're borne of grief. After all, if a headmate only dies because the system at large didn't care enough for them, it thusly creates an opportunity to prevent death by enacting care better, and more broadly, or gives that headmate someone to blame or hold accountable for the death of someone important to them.
No matter the reason for disagreement, it's important to be kind. If a headmate is grieving, give them the best support you can. You may benefit from seeking support on grief, though likely without mentioning any plural aspects. If a headmate does just have different beliefs, there's no reason they shouldn't be allowed to have them. Use your best judgement, of course. But if a headmate does have different beliefs, you should take their beliefs into account in the following sections. They may have different wishes for themselves, and that deserves to be honoured.
While you don't need to hold funerals specifically - and definitely not in the typical Western way of solemnly lowering a casket into the ground and giving a eulogy - holding ceremonies or rituals for the deceased can be very useful for grieving, and it'll prevent you from getting caught off guard and not knowing what to do. Refer back to your framework here; knowing what death is, what would be most meaningful to do when someone dies?
As an example, if after death, a system's headmates fade into the background of the mind - parts of their personality and identity becoming collective - envisioning a casket or grave might feel wrong, or as though the headmate is being cast out. They may feel that they're still with them, just in a different way. As such, their ceremonies may be about recognising their headmates' continuing presence, celebrating the parts of them that are still with them, or doing things the headmate enjoyed.
However, another system's headmates may not disappear after death, and their bodies may remain in headspace. In that case, this system's ceremonies may have a pronounced focus on headspace, and involve the headmate's body in some way. This may be a typical burial, or it could involve bringing their body somewhere important, or releasing their essence or soul from their body.
Your ceremonies can be literal or metaphorical (or anywhere inbetween), and they don't need to happen specifically in headspace. You can perform ceremonies physically, in headspace, mentally through visualisation, in video games, or in any way that suits you. The important part is knowing what the ceremonies are and how to perform them in advance. Some things to think about:
Like the framework, having a basic guide on what ceremonies will look like gives you space to work in and expand on later. Even if it's not perfect from the start (and it probably won't be!) it's good to have something to base further ceremonies and changes on.
With an understanding of what death is and why it happens in your system, you can also understand how to prevent death - if it is something that needs preventing. There are some generally applicable methods though.
These methods may or may not be useful to you. It's okay if they're not, since you can develop your own.
If you understand what death looks like, and why it happens, you can work on understanding what a dying headmate may look like, and who is more at risk of death. You can develop methods to prevent headmates from being in circumstances that may increase their risk. Consider:
As an example, a system with lots of introjects may find that interacting with their introjects' source makes them more solid and present, and thus less likely to die. Some introjects who are source separated might become distressed when interacting with source, and have the opposite effect, becoming less solid and present. A different method would have to be developed for source separated introjects, and of course interacting with source doesn't help if you don't have a source in the first place.
And of course, all of that assumes that becoming more solid and present is beneficial. Another system may need to have headmates be relatively unpresent - perhaps for this system, one headmate becoming very solid and present pushes the others out and makes it much harder for them to continue existing. For this system, techniques related to causing dissociation, or merging or integration may be more useful to keeping everyone around, as counter-intuitive as that may seem.
As we developed an understanding of death and the ceremonies involved, we started to notice headmates were dying before they died, rather than after. This was alarming, for several reasons: firstly, it meant that we needed to make a decision on what would happen to them. For us death is fully negative, and we didn't want to just give up on them and let them die. On the other hand, we didn't know what else we could do. Despite our efforts, we haven't figured out any ways of preventing death. It seemed that our hands were tied.
The other issue, of course, was that they were still alive. If they were alive, surely they could stay that way. And if that were the case, couldn't we have saved everyone else too? Didn't that mean it was our fault that our headmates died?
I want to emphasise that this is not true. It wasn't our fault, and it isn't your fault that your headmates die either.
When it comes to end of life care, you have more options than when a headmate is dead. If a headmate can't be prevented from dying, there are still things you can do to make things easier for everyone.
You should also consider what will happen with a dying headmate's belongings, internal work, and relatives or dependents. It's useful to develop a framework on who owns a headmate's belongings after they pass, who will take over their work, and who will take care of any dependents. [expand this]
Firstly: is there anything this headmate was doing that imminently needs taking care of? Things that are vital to life like dealing with work, physiological needs like food, water, or rest? Are there things ongoing in your life that this headmate was in charge of, such as healthcare (i.e dealing with assessments, referrals, making appointments or getting medication) that aren't imminent, but are on a timer? What about things that'll slip through the cracks while you're getting things back together, like messaging people back or creative pursuits? Write down a list of these things. Put it somewhere that you and other headmates will be able to find.
With the list, check: which of these can be stalled? For example, you might have an upcoming appointment - but it's months away. Someone needs to monitor the calendar and be ready for the appointment, but you have time to figure it out. Or, maybe you needed to get groceries two days ago and everyone assumed the recently deceased would take care of it. This cannot be stalled - someone needs to do it, and ideally with as little difficulty as possible. Losing someone is hard - we'd like for things to not get harder. An essay that you're writing for fun can be stalled essentially indefinitely, although you may find it more beneficial to engage in your hobbies.
If you have the ability to stall something important, do so. Use whatever excuses you need; a pet has died and you need time to grieve, or a close friend is moving house after 10 years and they need people to help move all their stuff, or Aunt Beth is hosting a family get-together and this is your only chance to see your Gran for the next while. Lying can be difficult, so I recommend prepping something in advance. It's good if your reasons are things that'll be ongoing - the pet thing is a good one for this, as grief is expected to last a long time - but it's okay if you just need someone to get out of your hair.
It's also ideal to convene with your headmates, to the best of your ability. If there are things that need dealing with, someone should be designated to deal with them. Ideally this is someone who can handle these things with minimal distress or difficulty. Things are already difficult for you. You should also discuss if this headmate will transition away from this role, and if so, when. Temporary solutions are often the most permanent, and your headmates may end up feeling trapped or pressured into a role that they only ever took on in an emergency. This can cause further emergencies down the line, so it's good to sort it out immediately.
Assuming all of your needs are taken care of, you should consider who can support you in grieving. If there are people in your life who are aware of your plurality, are they equipped to support you with this? Are there people who can help you without needing to know about your plurality? Support in this scenario is not only emotional - having a shoulder to cry on is good, but having someone to make dinner for you is good too. If there are people who can aid you with your physical needs, consider asking for help. Even if you just say "Something happened and I'd really appreciate if you could [help me with dinner/drive me to work/make sure I go to bed on time/just come over] for a while", it's better than nothing.
Grieving itself is complicated. You are likely to feel upset, angry, helpless, and/or that you are to blame, in the wake of this death. At times you may feel nothing in particular. I would recommend seeking external resources on grief. Even if they are not plural-focused, they will still have useful advice that can be extrapolated to plural circumstances.
Lastly, once you're feeling steadier, you may want or need to perform some kind of ceremony for the deceased. I'd recommend reading the rest of this page when you're in a good headspace, as it covers this topic in relative detail and is hopefully applicable to a broad variety of circumstances. Also go check out lb-lee's Crisis Planning: How To Make A Pocket Crisis Guide page to hopefully avoid getting caught off guard like this in other circumstances.