We tend to think about life and death as metaphysical states, but life is really just a process. And death the absence of that process.

Or actually, life is a bunch of different processes. It's possible for some to stop while others continue. Some, if stopped, can be restarted again, others can't. It all depends on whether the systems supporting those processes survive is a useable state. Often they deteriorate without the metabolical processes, but some systems are stable enough to survive a long time without the processes that maintain them so the processes can be restarted.

So are you dead when the processes stop, or when the system has deteriorated to the point they can't be restarted?