The Death card doesn’t mean literal death, except when it does. Typically, it represents an ending, which also implies a new beginning. Something has changed, or something will change. You just don’t know what yet. Unless you do. Tarot’s funny that way.
The “actual” meaning of the Death card is something you learn when you study tarot, but it’s also something that has slipped beyond the world of tarot lore and into the mainstream consciousness. The TV Tropes page for tarot motifs reveals dozens of mentions of the Death card, most of which involve characters who learn that it foretells “change” or “an ending” instead of literal death.