Hydrangeas from Dad Outline

Hydrangeas from Dad: The Gift that Rekindled
My Soul Embracing Spirit After a Parent’s Passing

Mary Ellen Connett, MS, LMFT

Dedication

Dedicated to Dad, the way he lived his life, the way he transitioned with dignity, and the legacy he left: “Put more of your heart and soul into it.”

Acknowledgments

Thanking all the people who journeyed with me through the healing and the creation of this book

Introduction

A Book Transformed

How the book started as a self-help guide through your parent’s dying How, as I stepped more fully onto my soul’s path, the book transformed to a teaching memoir.

Explaining the use of “Passing” “Transition” and “Passage” rather than “Death”.

The promise of this book to the reader

• Heal grief after a parent’s passing
• Understand there is no death only transition of the soul
• Embrace the spiritual fulness of their own life

The reader will experience this promise by:

• Being encouraged through the author’s personal story and stories of others to accept that the soul is eternal and that their parent who has transitioned can still parent through their soul connection
• Understanding the significance of their own soul’s journey and their soul relationships
• Learning to nourish their soul and their soul connections to loved ones

Chapter 1

The Significance of a Parent’s Passing: Love, Loyalty, Loss and Legacy

• Finality, expectations, shift in perception from bewilderment to acceptance
• Shifting of roles, dependency, insight into parent’s lives
• Doubt, loneliness
• Confronting mortality, fear
• Shift in being from ego centric toward increased awareness of interconnectedness with others, especially family relationships
• Transformation of Self – shift in being toward the spiritual
• Autonomy and responsibility

Chapter 2

Through the Dark Night: The Dreaded Call to Action

• The dreaded call – learning of Dad’s stroke, emergency hospitalization and going to him
• Transitioning into the reality that Dad was dying at the same time my daughter was returning from a month-long, small sailing craft voyage across the Atlantic
• The polarity of endings and reunions – caught in the cross current
• Releasing our patriarch through family rituals, bonds and restructuring
• Promising Dad I’ll write about him and our journey.

Chapter 3

The Gift that Rekindled My Soul: Dad’s Message in the Night

• Receiving the picture of hydrangeas from my Dad’s phone a month after his death, with no one operating his phone.
• A parent continuing to parent after their passing

Chapter 4

The Reason for the Gift: A Call to Live with Gusto

• Interpreting the meaning of dad’s message
• Why would dad thank me and encourage me to embrace Spirit?
• Dad helping me from the afterlife to make peace with his physical death; be comforted by knowing our soul connection continues; live with passion, creativity and spirit

Chapter 5

A Bold New Journey: From Embers to Flame Awakening

• My Fierce Feminine Fire – in rural GA after the election of 2016 when feminine power was again under siege
• Wondering how I could thrive on this path, living in a land of much closed mindedness, racism, rigidity, resistance to change, fear, doubt
• Risking career suicide, my livelihood, ridicule, judgment, loss of credibility, criticism.

Chapter 6

Embracing Spirit: The Risky Path of Living Your Soul’s Purpose

• Owning and claiming the truly passionate, creative, and spiritual self
• No turning back now but moving on with trepidation
• Risk of losing the primary relationship – what compromises do I have to make?
• Challenges in living – rocky, unpredictable, often not in alignment with your spouse, partner, or family members’ paths

Chapter 7

Soul Comfort: Continued Communication with Soul’s Who Have Transitioned Before

• Continued messages from Dad, his becoming a spirit guide for me
• Other souls who made their presence known along the path
• Shift in perception of life’s purpose

Chapter 8

Soul Sustenance: Spiritual Practices that Nourish the Soul

• Universal Shamanism, Respecting all of Nature, Women’s Spiritual Empowerment
• Retreats and programs, Prayer, Meditation, Ritual, Drumming, Drum Making, Drum Circles, Creative Expression, Energy and Sound Healing, Meditative Movement, Yoga, Nature, Horses, Wilderness and Nature Adventures, Universal Laws, Intention, Manifestation

Chapter 9

Inspiring Writers About the Soul’s Journey

• Brian Weiss, Caroline Myss, Echo Bodine, don Oscar Miro Quesada, Sandra Ingerman, Jennifer O’Neill, Mirabi Starr, don Miguel Ruiz, Iris Bolton and others

Chapter 10

The Rekindled Soul: Out of the Embers and into Your Fire

• The Benefits of Living a Soul Inspired Life
• Continued Challenges from Social, Political, Geographical and Relationship Barriers along this path
• Still, the Greatest Fulfillment of Our Life on Earth is Continuing our Soul’s evolution and transcending all barriers