Having to kill one’s characters

I know the advice about how a good writer needs to be willing to kill one’s characters, but it’s hard. I’m reaching a point where a character I’ve grown to love is going to die. I can save this person, and in fact, I can finish the entire trilogy (I’m still on volume 2, so hold your horses, I’m not nearly done) without anyone important to the story dying, but it seems like a cheat. The deaths have to be there since the world I created is violent and it seems so unlikely that everyone would survive.

Ugh! I don’t like it.