"Everything Is Cool" by John Prine 

McCarley Jean Rutledge was a force. We met as roommates freshman year in the dorms and were matched completely in our raging energy for life and the freedom of finally being on our own. She, like many of us, wanted to build a new identity while at school, to start fresh, to name herself. But the identity she wanted most was one separate from the illness that had come to define her since she was diagnosed in high school. Just to be normal, not “cancer girl.”
All of us on that floor of Libby Hall became close immediately and though she never asked us to keep her cancer or her remission a secret, we wordlessly agreed to keep that part of her safe in the group. She wanted people to look at her the way they looked at everybody else: without pity in their eyes. Without seeing her as weak or suffering. Because anyone lucky enough to have known Carley knew that she was anything but weak. She was as persistent and strong willed as a glacier cutting through a mountain. She was hilarious and powerful, at times insecure, and almost always a pain in the ass. She was beautiful and confused and moody. Witty, impatient. Kind and loyal. She was angry and lovely and wise. She was “normal” because she was dimensional, but she was exceptional because of the amount of love she had for life. Because of how hard she fought, not just to keep it, but to live it. I was lucky enough to know her during her 6 years of remission and then when it came back. And it’s true, that in those 6 years, Carley lived more, did more, felt more, was more than most people I’ve met, combined.
This video was the last thing I was able to say to her. I sent it to her while she was at the hospital, shortly before she transitioned from life to whatever’s next, in her mom’s arms. In so many ways this song, written by John Prine, encapsulates Carley as a person. Because even though she was followed by the shadow of a sickness that eventually took her, she never let it take her humor, she never let it take her cool.
For Carl, May 10th 1994 - November 24th 2021
RIP babygirl, love you endlessly, you little stinker
If you can, consider donating to her family's Cancer foundation, the Rutledge Cancer Foundation: rutledgecancer...