Sheena Agnew was a kind single mother of 10 kids. She had five girls and five boys. She died following a car accident and the family is not the same without her.
“She put everyone else before herself,” said her son Erwin Watson. “She loved all of us equal. Before she passed she risked her life to save my sister’s life.”
On Nov. 18 Agnew was headed to Lansing to drop her son and his girlfriend off. She was on I-69. A car from the other side came from the police lane and hit her car head on.
“My mother reached over so my sister wouldn’t hit her head on the windshield,” Watson said. “She snatched her seatbelt off and pushed my sister’s head all the way back with her arm. My sister still had a traumatic brain injury. So, my mom did all she could to make sure my sister didn’t take too much damage to the face. They said that the steering wheel got stuck on her stomach and there was internal bleeding down there they couldn’t stop. She told them to take her daughter first.”
Watson said Agnew was the backbone of the family who kept everyone together.
“If you had a problem she would help us,” Watson said. “If you ever needed answers, she was there to preach to us and would guide us. She was not only a mother; she was basically a counselor to us. She don been through it all. It’s like she went through a lot with all 10 of us ‘cause you know it’s 10 kids with different personalities, you know. Now, we look at her and it’s like ‘how did she do it?’”
Watson said he and his siblings don’t have a father figure. Watson’s three oldest siblings’ fathers are deceased.
“So, now they’re without a mother and a father and a grandmother. It’s like all we’ve got now is really each other. “
Watson and the oldest siblings are trying to do the best they can to make sure their younger siblings are good. Not only did his sister Elisha Watson, age 22, suffer traumatic brain injury in the accident but his younger brother, Jerry Watson, age 23, was in the car and broke his hip, which he had surgery on. He is currently in a wheelchair. Carrying him is a two man job, according to Watson.
“Then my sister, her intestines were twisted from the trauma from the accident so they had to do surgery on her. She had a broken rib.”
Jerry Watson needs to go through physical therapy for his left side. Elisha is in a walker and barely able to walk or move without assistance.
Erwin Watson tested positive for COVID-19 shortly before his mother’s passing. While alive, his mother would drop off food, vitamins and disinfectant sprays on the porch for Watson and leave it outside. Since Erwin Watson couldn’t work, Sheena Agnew was helping him pay his household’s bills.
The children living in the home of Sheena Agnew are ages 12, 16, 18, 21 and 23. None of them are able to work at the time due to being under-aged, not having a GED, being in school, not having ID, having a traumatic brain injury, not being able to walk or simply not being in a right mental state of mind due to their mother’s passing. Elisha Watson, who has the traumatic brain injury, will have to be cared for for life. She also has long term memory loss because she got hit by a car 12 years ago.
“My mother cared for her. She was her caregiver. Sometimes she may throw an episode, like a tantrum or something, and my mother knew how to deal with that.”
Though her siblings observed their mother care for Elisha Watson and they are learning to manage, this presents yet another challenge for the family.
The family is trying to raise a total of $25,000. The funds raised will be used to pay the majority of Sheena Agnew’s house off. Erwin Watson said a lot of people offered support but they did not initially accept it because they were grieving at the time and felt they had to take the responsibility for paying expenses themselves. However, due to the fact they have looked further into what that responsibility is, they are now accepting donations.
“My mother was well-known in Flint because she helped a lot of people…Almost everyone in Flint knows our mother. It’s kind of crazy. If I’d go somewhere with her (and we’d see someone who knew her). She’d tell me a story of what they don been through. I don’t even know how she did what she did…All I can say in closing is what type of person my mother was; a kind, loving person who never hated anyone. She always believed in forgiveness even for those who did her wrong. She always wanted us to forgive even though it‘s hard for us. We don’t have that kind of a heart. All we can do is try to live up to her expectation of who she wanted us to be. ”
To donate to the Sheena Agnew GoFundMe account, visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/mother-of-10-tragically-killed-in-car-crash?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1.
