Dear Suzi,
While there is definitely a great feeling of sadness concerning the imminent passing of your terminally ill relative, would you feel that it was disrespectful of me if I told you that there are several spirits around you now who are looking forward to being there to greet your loved one at the passing and see this as more a joyous reunion and a time of great celebration that the pain is all over and that the spirit has once more returned to it's true home?
These comforting and supportive spirits are more frequently around you than they are around the actual person concerned, as I feel that to the patient this will be seen as a time of blessed relief and release from a body that is no longer serving any useful purpose. In other words, it is as if you are more upset about this than your relative is. While in most cases your gift of empathy and compassion works in your favour, in this one it unfortunately also makes you more vulnerable to taking on the person's pain as your own.
They appear deeply concerned about your ongoing ability to cope with your own very real problems and make whatever required changes you feel are needed to compensate. Even such a well intended and giving person such as yourself needs to know when it is time to take a temporary rest break and pull back a little from the situation now and then to recharge her own spiritual batteries. They are saying that one of the best ways you can help them is to try to do more to help yourself, by showing as much compassion and understanding towards yourself as you have so often given so freely to others in the past.
Their biggest concern without any doubt is for you to take better care of yourself and especially care for the state of your own health on many different levels. Their pranks of hiding the keys and upsetting your cats are to merely provide you with some temporary distractions and are intended to make you relax more and lighten up a little, as even a person with your significant abilities and strong constitution has her limits.
Of course these are only meant to be temporary time outs and short periods of spending some quality time alone with yourself, but their purpose is to not only conserve your own vital energies as you are to be honest near exhaustion, but also to offer you a more balanced and higher perspective on your many challenges (both now and in the future). A greater sense of fun and of being able to laugh at yourself (not to take life and yourself so seriously all of the time) is just what your inner doctor has prescribed here, and whoever these spirits are they have collected around you to ensure that the prescribed treatment is carried out to the letter.
They will be more than prepared to help your terminally ill relative when the proper time arrives, and they know that by helping you in this manner you will then in turn be much more effective in helping and comforting others when the spirit leaves it's physical shell for it's final journey. Take better care of yourself as well and get some of your own equally important needs met, as your relative would want you to carry on with your own life in order to honour his or her memory, once they have left.
Loving regards,
eye_of_tiger
