Dreamer, I'm an only child, too.
I cannot believe how reluctant I was to have children and now thank my lucky stars I have my sons. When my mother died after a sudden and short illness, the last link`with the family I grew up with died too.
My father had passed away a few years earlier. I have not lived in the city of my childhood for 22 years. I have virtually no extended family in the UK, and none that I am close to. Apart from a few old childhood friends, I have no one left from that time. All the people I grew up with ( parents and grandparents) are dead.
Sorry, not trying to sound self pitying, but it's strange seeing a group of people once close, unravel. Many of my mother's old friends were part of my childhood, too. Now she is not here, and I am in London, we have lost contact. They were never friends of mine, just people who passed through my life, but I still miss them. Then I switch off and think about the here and now - my own family.
But...If I'd known how much I'd lose, I would have made an effort to make friends with my mother's friends, and visited her sisters and brothers with her to keep the connection going.
I suspected my mother was ill before the doctors confirmed it and really can relate to cl's point about nagging doctors and getting second opinions. But this is something else that happened for me - in her last year, I began to see my mother as someone in need of protection. She had always been a physically and mentally strong woman, and I always offloaded my problems onto her, talking to her without a second thought.
As my perception of her mortality changed, I began to gloss over events in my life, giving her a rosy view of things so she wouldn't worry. I know lots of my friends have been doing this with their mother since adolescence but having to put a big gloss on things for the first time made me feel very lonely. I needed even more love and support from my husband to make up. Yet in retrospect, I am glad I did this. She went off believing all our problems were tiny ones.
Dreamer, I envy you your mother and your time with her. Have fun together - mum and I had many lovely shopping trips and cafe outings together in her last months - all you can do is live each day. And live your life to the full, too - my mother had an enduring and sometimes irritating fascination with mine. Had I put it on hold, I think she would have lost a great source of enjoyment.