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House Fire
After a night of loss, a Tennessee family holds on to faith

by Emma Tinch

After reading an article about a child's death in LEADERSHIP, a sister publication of CHRISTIAN READER, Emma Tinch, a mother from Tennessee, wrote a heart-felt letter recalling her own family tragedy 25 years ago. The power of Emma's faith clearly sustained her, poignantly captured in her simple narration of the story.

The fire started about midnight on a February night in 1974. My husband Robert wanted to stay up to watch "Gunsmoke" but he fell asleep in his recliner in the living room. He woke 'cause of the fire in the kitchen. He tried to put it out, but it was too far gone.

Robert run and grabbed me up out of the bed in my nightgown. We run out of the house, because we couldn't go through the kitchen to get the children. We run to the back to the windows of the children's bedrooms. I was out there in my nightgown, barefoot.

I started to slip my shoes on, but Robert said, "You ain't got time for that, we hafta get the kids." The yard was full of people, but not one offered a helping hand.

Robert broke a window with his fist and got our nine-year-old son Loyd Hugh out as I was trying to get our daughters. I broke the glass and crawled in as far as I could. I woke up Robin Loretta, 8, and told her to get four-year-old Lilly Reneigh. She wasn't in her bed.

There was an explosion. We think the fire had started because of bad wiring at the outlet for the electric stove. I'd told my husband to fix it that day 'cause it was a regular fire trap, but he never got to it. We had a gas cook stove, too, but we was out of gas. So, if the stove exploded, it was just off the fumes. It must have been the stove, because I don't know of any other combustibles we had in the kitchen that could blow out two walls and part of the roof.

I had put a pillow in the window to keep the girls from getting cut. Just as I pulled Robin Loretta through the window, a blazing board fell, burning her hand and nose. Neighbors was pulling me away so I didn't get burned up. They yanked me away just as I pulled my daughter out. I wouldn't let go and kept yelling for my little one.

My son was unharmed. The nearest hospital was 20 miles away. A skift of snow was on the ground. I was sinking into unconsciousness as people took me to our car. I could hear shotgun shells going off from the fire. I tripped over an electric fence, which woke me up.

We sat in the car and watched helplessly as our five-room house fell in on our baby. All that would come out of my mouth was, "Baby's with Jesus." I just kept repeating it over and over.

Some needed warmth
I was so cold it didn't seem like I'd ever be warm again. The children and my husband were in the front seat by the car heater. A big man that I didn't recognize, (I later found out he was a neighbor), got in the back seat with me, wrapped a big fluffy jacket around me, and pulled me close. His body heat started getting me warm.

We all were loaded in the same ambulance, but I didn't want to leave my baby. Fire trucks were everywhere by now. They worked on my arm. I noticed my husband's arm was bleeding also, and I said, "Fix his arm first. I'm okay."

They said, "He's being taken care of," and I looked and the children were humped up against their daddy's good arm. He said, "Praise the Lord, I've got you left and everything will be alright. You're safe now."

I must've passed out, for the next thing I knew me and Robert was in the same room at the hospital of Fentress County, Tennessee. They were giving my husband blood. A nurse started at the neck of my gown with some scissors and started cutting.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Well, honey, we have got to get these clothes off you; they're soaked in blood."

A policeman was standing in the door, and I grabbed the nurse's hand and asked, "What is he in here for?"

"Well, when there's an accident like this they haft to investigate it."

"Well, get him out of here before you cut my clothes off me." She told him to step outside.

They put me on a gurney and started running toward the operating room. My doctor was helping push. I looked up, and he was crying.

"Am I going to die, too?" I asked him.

"Not if I can help it, sweetheart."

Loving good-nights
The next thing I knew my best friend, Treva Ashburn, was bent over my face calling my name. I tried to hug her, but I had a board from my elbow to the tips of my fingers. I asked for Robert.

Treva's husband Paul rolled Robert's bed over close to mine. Paul helped Robert put his hand over mine.

I asked if the kids were asleep. Robin Loretta had been on oxygen for smoke inhalation. My sister-in-law Betty went and got them. They came in smiling, but I could see they was choking back tears. I said, "Come give Mama a good-night kiss."

They hesitated, but Betty said it's okay. They flew into my arms. I said I can't hug you back because they have me all tied down. They said, "That's okay, Mama, we love you anyway."

"I know you do, babies," I said. "Now go love Daddy good-night and then you get some sleep." It was almost morning, and they'd be going home soon. The hospital staff gave me another shot to sleep.

"You saved it, I'll use it"
The next time I woke up, Robert, who had 19 stitches in his arm, was trying to go to the bathroom, and they came back in to give him more blood. He said he didn't have time, he had some funeral arrangements to make. They tried to tell him someone else could do it, but he said, "No, that's my job."

He kept on 'til he got enough strength to walk, and someone took him over to the funeral home. He asked me how I wanted it done, but I told him to fix it to suit himself. I would have done it if I was able.

I didn't know how bad my arm was; the doctor said he saved my hand, but I'd never be able to use it again. "Well, if the Lord let you save it, then he will let me use it!"

He told me not to get false hopes because it was cut real bad. I repeated, "You saved it, I'll use it." As they dressed my arm, which was numb, I counted the stitches—106 from my elbow to my fingertips.

Day after day, I kept trying to wriggle my fingers. Within four days, one moved a little; it hurt, but I kept at it. I wanted to surprise everyone. The day after I left the hospital, I was able to cook using both hands.

The gift of tears
I stayed in the hospital eight days and had eight units of blood. Not one church member as I recall visited me. An unbelieving friend of mine come by the hospital to sit with me while the family all went to the funeral.

Lilly had a closed casket with her picture on top. My friends, who I sang at church with, did her favorite song, "Sheltered in the Arms of God." When the roses bloomed, Lilly always had to pick the first rose for Mama. The singers put a rose on her casket, and it was buried with her.

After the funeral, my husband came to visit me. He put his head on my bed and said, "Well, honey, we're back where we started, with nothing." He was trying hard to hold back the tears.

"Honey," I said, "it's okay to cry with me. But you're wrong about being left with nothing. We still have our two wonderful children to be thankful for and cry with us."

He said men aren't supposed to cry, that's for women and children. I asked who told him that. He said his dad.

"Did you ever repeat the Bible verse, 'Jesus wept'?" I asked. He said yes. I said, "He wept when Lazarus, his friend, died. Who do you believe, Dad or Jesus?"

He held me, and we cried together many times after that. I had used the right key words to unleash his grief, and I'm so glad I did.

Editor's note: In 1986, Emma's husband, Robert Neely, died at age 47 of pancreatitis. She married Willie Tinch in 1992. Daughter Robin is married and has twin boys, 11, and a daughter, 14. Loyd is married and has a three-year-old son. Emma now attends First Baptist Church of Mineral Springs. Speaking of her own tragedy, Emma says, "I'd like to let people know what God's done for me, and that there's hope for them, too."

A Christian Reader original article.

Copyright © 1999 by the author or Christianity Today International/Today's Christian magazine (formerly Christian Reader).
Click here for reprint information.

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