‘It can be really frightening’: knowing the common signs that a loved one is dying can help in their final days

Experts encourage holding the dying person’s hand or gently stroking their forehead, and continuing to speak to them. Photograph: Phanie/Alamy

My mum died on a summer’s morning.

When I walked out of the hospital, where I had spent the last several days and nights curled on a small couch next to her bed, I felt like a stray root of some ancient tree that had accidentally broken out of the earth and into foreign air – wholly unprepared for the strange world I now found myself in.