Clearly a lot of thought went into the passing of Sims. The Grim Reaper is pretty much always involved, even for pets. If someone has lived a long, happy life like Lilly here, he comes with a couple of luau dancers, gives them a drink and a suitcase, and pats them on the shoulder as they head off to whatever Sim heaven exists in the files on my hard drive.
If someone dies in a fire or drowns, even the Reaper looks a little sad and disappointed, shaking his head mournfully before making a call on his cellphone that sends down a beam of light to collect the Sim and leave an urn or headstone. Sims can argue with him sometimes, especially if they've had a genie lamp and wished for the 'power to cheat death'. Then the Sim and the Reaper play a little game where he hides a little ball of light, and the Sim guesses which hand it's in. If there is a playable Sim there with a close relationship with the dying Sim, sometimes I can click on the Reaper and choose "Plead", and he might spare their life. There is supposed to be an interaction on the phone that I've never found, and I know there's something called the Resurrect-a-tron, but I haven't found that either. As I've already mentioned, though, I'm very fond of resurrecting people with the genie lamp. I believe Lilly was actually resurrected twice.
If the Sim or pet dies inside the house, an urn with their ashes appears. If they are outside, it's a tombstone. For a Sim they come in two types (plain, or marble and gold), depending on whether the Sim died with platinum aspiration. They can be easily moved like any other household object, and they switch between urn and headstone depending on where they are. It's also easy to click on either one and select "move...", which allows you to move it to any other lot in your neighbourhood.
There is a Sim insurance company that pays out life insurance to friends and family of the departed. If they are in another household, the next time I play it, a red tombstone will circle over their head, they'll cry for a minute, and then - ka-ching! - their cash on hand increases. I didn't mention that as a way to make money since it would be a pretty long and convoluted process to make happen deliberately. It sure has come in handy at times, though.
The day on which a Sim dies is determined by how good and happy a life they've lived, as measured by their aspiration points at every life stage they age up. You do see it coming, as the green bar that measures their age marches inexorably towards being full. Time in the Sim world is a little different than ours; it's tempting to think that 75 days means 75 years, but that would mean Sims are infants until they are three, then toddlers until they are seven, a child until they are 15, and a teen until they are 30. Which, now that I think about it, is actually not that far off the modern truth. Huh.
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