If Tabitha Ishman didn't know better, she would think that one of her young grandchildren who per­ished in a Sunday fire may have known tragedy would befall her.



Jakayla Gamble, 3, had two songs on her mind in the days leading up to her death -- "Jesus Loves Me" and "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands."



Jakayla, her 8-year-old brother

Jordan, and her mother, Claudia Dukes, died in a fire Sunday morn­ing at Beacon View Apartments off Valley Avenue.



Both Friday and Saturday -- on the way home from day care and on the way home from getting her favorite meal of Chicken McNug­gets -- Jakayla over and over sang her own phrase, "He's got the mama and the babies in his

hands," Ishman said.

"Those are the two songs she focused on," said Ishman, 44. "That's how I know they are safe in the arms of the Lord."

It's what has kept Ishman going since the last phone call she had with her 25-year-old daughter Claudia Dukes, who called to tell her they were trapped in their burning apartment with no way out.

Ishman said they were on the line for several minutes.

"I heard her gasping for air and I kept screaming for her to break a window," Ishman said. "Then there was silence."

Dukes, Jakayla and Jordan were found huddled together and dead on the bathroom floor after fire ravaged their building.

"It was awful. Just awful," Birmingham Fire and Rescue Battalion Chief C.W. Mardis said.

Dukes' 4-month-old daughter, Aalyiah, was spending the night with her father at her other grandmother's home and was away from the apartment when the blaze erupted.

Firefighters received the call for the fire at 5:20 a.m. Mardis said they arrived to a chaotic situation. Some people jumped from windows; others were pulled to safety by firefighters. It took 90 minutes to get the fire under control with about 50 firefighters working the blaze.

Ten apartment units were destroyed. A firewall prevented the flames from spreading to 10 other units in the building. Mardis said Monday the fire was started by unattended food left cooking on the stove in the apartment above Claudia Dukes' unit.

The resident of that apartment came in, put food on the stove and then fell asleep. "He was awakened by his dog trying to get out of the apartment," Mardis said. "The front room was already full of fire and smoke. It had been burning for a while."

Ishman said the phone awoke her early Sunday. Her daughter was telling her about the fire and how she couldn't get out. Witnesses said Dukes opened the front door, saw the flames and retreated into the apartment.

Ishman said she was more panicked than her daughter, repeatedly telling her to grab anything to break the window.

"She was calm," Ishman said. "It was like she was saying, 'Mama, I've done all I can do.' " Ishman said the phone call lasted five minutes, but there were only about two minutes of actual conversation.

"I heard her coughing, but I never heard the children," Ishman said. "I do know that she did all she could to protect those children. That's the type of mom she was."

Ishman sped to the fire scene, but said it was clear the family had not made it out.

"By the time I got there, it was an inferno," she said. "I knew she would have called me if she was out and safe."

Dukes, a graduate of Huffman High School and Lawson State Community College, worked at the Wachovia Bank call center and also just began her clinical rotation for nursing school. Her plans were to become a nurse anesthetist. She was engaged to the father of her infant daughter, but wanted to get her career going before planning a wedding.

"Claudia was a smart girl," her mother said. "She had so much to offer."

Jordan, diagnosed at a young age with congenital glaucoma, had recently become a student at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind and was loving every minute of it. He was a wrestling fanatic, and always opted to be outside rather than sitting inside and playing video games.

"He had matured so much there," Ishman said. "He was looking forward to being on the wrestling team."

Given the choice between staying at the boarding school or being home, Jordan preferred school because of all of the activities, his grandmother said. He was only home this weekend because he was sick.

Jakayla, she said, was full of life and love. Already she had learned her alphabet -- on Saturday she completed her homework sheet on the letter "B"--and loved school and reading.

The two children, she said, had a close bond.

"Anything you gave her, she wanted one for her big brother," Ishman said. "When they were apart, they always asked about each other. That's the way Claudia raised them to be. They were extraordinary children."

The family was together at Ishman's home Saturday night to watch college football. Dukes was an avid Alabama fan, but her mother cheers for Auburn.

"She was talking smack about Auburn," her mother said with a smile.

She said her daughter couldn't have left her with a better memory.

"She was laughing, she looked happy and she looked very pretty," Ishman said. "That's what I'll remember."

The family left about 11:30 p.m. with plans to return the next day for Sunday dinner.

"If I'd had any inkling, I would have made every last one of them stay here," Ishman said. "I am at a loss."