Death is a phenomenon that Life shows us in a number of different ways while we're still alive.
You die when you break someone's trust to an extent that you can't be trusted again, you die when you rob someone of their tangible or intangible belongings that they earned after putting in too much effort and hard work during a certain span of time, you die when you hurt someone physically or mentally to an extent that healing becomes more painful than the wound itself, you die when you step on someone else to go up the ladder in order to excel and achieve your own goals of life, you die when you don't value the beauty of your relationships with your loved ones, you die when you choose deception over honesty just for the sake of short-lived benefits, you die when you choose not to help another human being who is in dire need of your help during a difficult phase of his/her life, you die when you know the impact of your words or actions will be nothing but demeaning for the listener but you still go ahead with it.
It's only up to us whether we choose to be better by admitting all the messed up things we did in the past to the people around us and fixing all that, or keep living our lives the way we already are and do nothing about it! The latter, however, is certainly the 'tragedy' of life to me, Death is only a curtain call once our time's up!
Yes, there are many things far worst than death when we live. It all depends on how we choose to live.
And we always have choices.. as humans, we always get to choose. I never believe when people say they didn't have too many options to choose from, due to which they made a certain action or decision that adversely affected others around them. That is not true.. unacceptable to me at least in all it's entirety.