How jiu-jitsu inspired Elena Stowell to work through the grief over her daughter’s death.
Elena Stowell loves to tell stories about her daughter, Carly, who died suddenly in April 2007 — a week before her 15th birthday.
For years, Elena Stowell naturally struggled to cope, until she found Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
Then she began to tell stories about her daughter, who was a freshman at Kentlake, through the lens of her new sport.
A year ago her grief therapist suggested she write the stories down so Stowell, who is a science teacher at Kentwood, could see how far she had come.
At that point, Stowell said, “One of the things I’m dealing with is ‘I’m still sad. Where am I going?’ But, I sort of blew her off.”
Last summer Stowell was working in Washington, D.C. She was taking the train from New York to D.C. One day she noticed she could plug her computer in while commuting.
“I started writing and I didn’t stop,” she said. “The first couple chapters were kind of hard because it was about how I got to where I was… so I was writing and crying at the same time. I just kept writing these things down.”
Her jiu-jitsu coach, James Foster, had said a number of things that she used to filter her grief over the death of her first-born which helped provide the framework for the vignettes in her book.
“A lot of these were things my coach would say,” she said. “Because of where I was at, I took them to heart differently. So, I would write down what it meant to me in jiu-jitsu and what it meant to me where I was in life.”
Foster would say, for example, that in jiu-jitsu it was important to always keep one foot connected to the earth.
In the book Stowell explained what this meant to her as she practiced the martial art as well as how it applied to the rest of her life particularly as she continued to work through her grief.
“One reason I sought out jiu-jitsu is that most of the people didn’t know except for my coach,” she said. “That’s where I wasn’t Carly’s mom, life wasn’t about basketball, it was my sanctuary.”
Finally, she had written 20,000 words, some 60 pages of text.
In addition to seeing a grief therapist, Stowell said, she sought out the care of a naturopath. Once she had written those 60 pages she printed up a copy for each.
Then Stowell realized she felt a bit guilty because it may have seemed like she was writing behind Foster’s back, so, she gave him a copy as well.
At one point Foster had asked Stowell to write a testimonial about her experience with jiu-jitsu, but, she was non-committal to the idea at best.
When she gave him that first chunk of her book, Stowell said, she told him it was a little longer than the typical testimonial.
“I handed him this huge thing,” she said. “He is a huge softy. He started reading it, at the beginning he cried, and he couldn’t finish it.”
Foster said in an email interview that he was struck by the weight his words had carried and the impact they had on Stowell’s life.
“As an instructor, I was simply speaking from the heart and teaching what I consider to be the truth of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu,” Foster wrote. “A common saying in BJJ (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) is that someone ‘lives the Jiu-Jitsu lifestyle’ which on the surface can be taken to mean that someone simply makes training a part of their life. The deeper meaning is that someone takes the positive things they learn on the mat and applies them to all aspects of life. Elena found that deeper meaning in my words and was able to apply it which in turn aided in her recovery. My realization of this really made me take a step back and realize how much of an impact the things that we say in passing can have on someone’s life.”
As Foster, her grief therapist and naturopath read the book in its early stages, Stowell was encouraged to take the next step with it.
“I was getting this feedback from the three of them, ‘This is actually pretty good and maybe you should have it edited,'” she said.
Again Stowell blew the idea off initially.
After some thought, she literally Googled “freelance editor,” and came across a woman who called her editing business The Wordverve.
Stowell was drawn to that because she often described Carly as a “girl with verve.”
“I found out we were soul sisters,” Stowell said. “Two days after I sent it to her she wrote back, ‘Wow, this is really powerful and you should think about doing a little bit more with this.’ So, she suggested I flesh it out.”
This was in late December.
Stowell kept writing.
Her therapist suggested she tackle things Stowell considered “speed bumps.”
As she wrote, she cried, but Stowell said she laughed as well.
What she realized as she progressed was that she wanted to write something that offered all the things she didn’t get from other tomes on the same topic.
“I tell people I’m an accidental writer, I didn’t sit down to write a book, I was just doing a therapy project,” she said. “A lot of people gave me these therapy books about grieving and none of them really moved me.”
Her book is raw.
“At first I felt vulnerable,” Stowell said. “I am kind of laying myself out there. This is my story. This is me honoring her.”
And those who read it said others would get something from it.
“A couple of other people who had read the draft said this can help other people, this is inspiring,” Stowell said.
Finally, she had finished working on the book, she sent it to her editor Jan.
It topped out at 150 pages.
Her editor encouraged Stowell to publish it and connected the self-described accidental author with a publishing company.
Then in February she told her husband, Chuck, who teaches music at Kentlake.
She asked him if he was surprised she wrote a book.
Stowell said her husband paused, then said, “You’re always evolving.”
She wanted it to be OK with him that she was putting it out there because he was a significant part of the final product.
“It’s about me, it’s a personal story, but it’s also about my family,” Stowell said.
So, she made sure her sons Eason, a senior, and Carson, a freshman at Kentlake, were cool with it, as well.
Then she sent it to her parents. Her father loved it. Two days later her mother sent her a lengthy email.
The book, called “Flowing with the Go: A Jiu-Jitsu Journey of the Soul,” is available for pre-order now through the publisher at www.bqbpublishing.com or through Amazon.
It will come out July 10.
In the middle of all this, Stowell took what she called “a journey within a journey,” when she decided to compete in the jiu-jitsu world championships.
She trained, she prepared, she got in shape and for the first time around the anniversary of Carly death, Stowell was able to cope in a positive, functional way.
“I had my down days, but they were days, not weeks,” she said. “It was about getting me through those five months. It is not a fairy tale story, I didn’t go to the world championships and win. I came back from that and I felt like I had turned a corner. It was completely transformational.”
It was shortly after that she got to work writing.
“It’s been one year since my transformation,” Stowell said. “The fact that other people have looked at it and said it can help people is just icing on the cake.”
Foster said he was honored and humbled to be a part of Stowell’s journey to recovery.
“As an instructor, watching my students reach their goals as a result of my teaching and their dedication is the greatest accomplishment I can achieve,” Foster wrote. “My belief has always been that the benefits of training in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu are nearly limitless. It’s something that goes way beyond the physical health benefits such as weight loss, better conditioning, and increased flexibility that are often associated with training in the art. Elena’s story is a further testament to that aforementioned power.”
Thanks to jiu-jitsu and telling stories, Elena Stowell has made strides in grieving the death of her daughter, and from that came not just a book of stories but a life-changing experience.
The original story was written by Kris Hill and can be found on the Maple Valley Reporter
