The three guys in the car kept asking if she was cooperating with police. As they drove, she paid attention to every street sign and field they passed. At some point the men pulled over, shot her and ran.
They didn’t count on Powe living. She identified two of the three men, both of whom were found fatally shot before their court date. The third man was later incarcerated for two other murders. The drug charges against Powe were dropped and her ex-boyfriend was charged with giving the order to have her killed. She doesn’t like to mention his name in public because she said, “that’s my way of not giving him any more power.”
The most difficult injury over the years has been to her self esteem. She hated her glass eye—and the memories that the eye reminded her of.
“I couldn’t make eye contact with anybody,” said Powe. “When I looked at myself in the mirror I’d ask , ‘Oh my God, why?’ I remember going to the ocularist for cleaning appointments, and I sat there and cried until he put the eye back in. My eye affected my self esteem. My confidence was completely shook.”
A friend occasionally asked her when she was going to write a book about her experience.
“I didn’t want to put myself up to be judged, to openly talk about what happened—and to talk about a prosthetic eye,” said Powe.
Then at the end of 2010 she prayed for a month and asked God, “Tell me what am I supposed to do.” After one prayer session, she went to the gym for the first time—and ran into the friend who always asked her about writing. This time when he asked Powe if she was ready to write her book, she surprised herself and said, “Yes.” She recalls, “An overwhelming relief came over me.”
She finished the book earlier this year. On February 19, the anniversary of her shooting, she had what she called “a completion party, to create a new memory for me on that day, instead of constantly going back to that dark place of pain,” Powe said.
She also began speaking publicly about her life. She had never thought about herself as a victim of domestic violence, but she realized that indeed she was. She became an ardent advocate against domestic violence.
“I want to eradicate domestic violence,” said Powe. “I want to counsel, educate and build self esteems. That is my mission and my purpose.”
Shortly after the publication of her book someone introduced her to Rev. Torrey L. Barrett of Life Center Church in Chicago and he eventually hired her as Director of the Violence Prevention Initiative for his organization Keep Loving Each Other (KLEO).
“I took to Stephanie’s story so much because I lost a sister to domestic violence and her name was Kleo,” said Rev. Torrey. “We do a lot of violence prevention but we never had anyone with the passion for domestic violence and she is able to focus on that. She’s extremely dedicated.”
This year, for the first time in many years, Powe looked at herself in the mirror.
“I hold up my head and say I am still a beautiful person and have something to offer,” she said.
She still has a bullet in her spine and deals with daily pain from arthritis and an arm that she said is like carrying dead weight around.
Nevertheless, Powe explained why her life is so good. “Everyone knows my story. I don’t have to carry this burden. You can say whatever you want about me, I’m good; God has my back.”
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@ zombiesnthechurch
You said it all and I could not agree more.
I can sympathize with the situation, I also had a sister to be killed by domestic violence it was also one of those situations if I can’t have you no one else can, it’s sad that a person will let another person have that kind of power over their minds and act in vicious dangerous ways towards them. I miss my sister very much she also left a child behind that had to grow up without a mother or father because of the situation he lost his mother to death and his father to prison. Still missing my sister everyday.
Thankful for women like this one that LIVED to tell their story…from the beginning of her ordeal the key words to understanding the beginning of domestic violence is to AVOID it all together by not getting ‘caught up’ in what a man is ‘driving’ and determine what is driving the man! the other way of protecting ones self is if you definately KNOW what type lifestyle a man is living— getting yourself associated with him could be like signing your own suicide note because if he is controling you by what he has to offer you then you are nothing to him but his PROPERTY that he has bought the rights to! Women have got to stop this mess of looking at what a man has to offer her and get it for herself or a least find one that is willing to work with you….our society of women have become so
desperate for the love of a man that they seem to put themselves and often their children in harms way for the sake of the man…..I pray women take time out to listen to women such as this because in many cases while a women is thinking this will not happen to her and it does ……..and so many don t live to tell it!!!!!!!!!!!
laxed and complacent with accepting anything just to get what they want or just to have a male in their life
Why did he have that done to her?