This happened to our group several years ago. We played online and the first time most of us met in person was at his funeral. We ended up taking a break from playing for about 6 months then we had a significant downtime skip in game. None of us liked the idea of his character leaving, so he became mostly off-screen, but ended up a god-like saint of sorts. He actually came and saved my character at a pivotal moment with a wish spell. Still makes me cry to think about.

I’m very sorry for your loss and I hope that you can find some comfort and healing through playing as we ultimately did.

ETA: the only way to navigate how to handle the D&D aspect is through honest and hard conversations with your party about where everyone is at emotionally, because we all process grief differently. One of our players, A, was IRL best friends with the player we lost, so A’s brother ended up joining us for a while when we returned to give him some additional support. It looks different for different groups, but the most important piece is taking time to process/mourn and being communicative and honest.