In the days since her daughter’s death, Olivia Frye’s mind has kept going back to the singing.
Five-year-old Cora would sing all day long, whether it was a tune from “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” or her 2-year-old sister Ivette’s favorite, “This Little Light of Mine.” Olivia said she’ll especially miss hearing Cora sing to her sister.
“I can remember all the times that Cora would sing to Ivette, and either if she was frustrated or whatever, she’d sing and then it would get her little sister out of it,” Olivia said. “I miss the singing.”
Cora died last weekend after being hit by a car near their Loudon home, an incident police and her parents have described as a tragic accident.
“Now, it’s usually very quiet,” said her brother, 8-year-old Marshall. Olivia has noticed Ivette crooning the same songs that Cora once sang to her.
The Fryes remember their middle child as a loving and sensitive sister with a fierce streak of adventurous independence. She loved Disney princesses and the kids’ show “Bluey” and bright colors: purple, pink and sparkly teal, to be exact.
She could be shy, but at home, you’d never know it.
The middle child of five could act her heart out, mimicking all her favorite television shows to make her siblings laugh. She’d climb onto and jump off of things she shouldn’t, always thinking of new ways to play in a spacious backyard that would be any 5-year-old’s dream. She’d do it all wearing a dress, often decked out with a tiara or a purse — none of it matching, said her dad, Tim Frye.
“I describe her as my Johnny Knoxville in a dress,” Olivia said, referring to the famous stunt performer. “Very much a girl that can do both.”
Sitting in their backyard on a sunny, breezy spring afternoon, watching Cora’s four siblings play, Tim said he sees pieces of Cora in each of them: As Olivia went after their youngest, who was dragging a scooter to the top of the sloping hill — presumably to ride it, screaming, all the way down — it reminded him of something Cora would’ve done.
“She was a little bit of everything,” Tim said. “She was wild, she was free-spirited, shy. She was creative.”
Cora came to the Fryes in a time of grief and fear. Olivia learned she was pregnant just three days after her father died, right near the start of the pandemic.
“Cora gave us hope and light in a time that we thought was kind of one of our darkest times,” Tim said. “It kind of made her all the more special at that point … We have no idea why, just short of five-and-a-half years later, we don’t have her anymore.”
“She will be missed for the rest of our lives,” Olivia said.
‘Something beautiful’
This isn’t the way Tim would’ve chosen to get more connected to his community. The Fryes lived in their Loudon home for nine years, but unlike when he was growing up, he said it feels like everyone lives in their own bubble nowadays.
When Cora died, the bubble popped.
The outpouring of support from neighbors, their new church, the town and even complete strangers has been overwhelming and “beautiful,” the Fryes said.
Just a week before the accident, they’d decided to join a new church in Loudon after visiting on Easter Sunday.
“Little did we know, the Lord was setting us up for this,” Olivia said. Members of the church came and sang at their house, prayed for them and organized donation drives for the family. The Loudon community has also set up a meal train and a GoFundMe page, which had raised nearly $40,000 as of noon on Friday.
Having a shoulder to lean on has been crucial for Tim and Olivia, who are trying to be there for their kids and provide them with comfort and “normalcy in what is not normal right now.” Afternoons are still spent outside where, if the community hadn’t stocked them up with meals, Tim would be grilling as the kids played. The children also wanted to continue their baseball and softball seasons, so evenings are still filled with practices.
“We can’t just crawl into a hole,” Tim said. As a husband and father, he said he’s responsible for leading his family forward. But he can’t pour from an empty cup, he said, so he’s leaned into support from others.
That’s not something he’s used to. The Fryes are usually the family that will “pretzel” themselves and bend over backward to help others.
“There are times that it’s been in the other direction. We’ll always be like, ‘Nope, we’ve got this handled. We can take care of it,'” Tim said. “With this, it’s just like, ‘No, actually, I’m going to let people help us.’ … This is a lot. This is things that we never imagined that we were going to have to do.”
As they navigate a loss they never expected, the Fryes are leaning into their faith. Tim said he believes this happened for a reason, although that reason isn’t quite clear yet.
“Even though we say that what happened was an accident, we know to God it was not an accident. There was a purpose and a plan to this,” Tim said. “There’s something beautiful that will come from this, and we just don’t know when it is. We don’t know what it will be, or if it will be a bunch of things, all the way around, that is just kind of little sprinklings all the way through.”
