As family gathered by Carley Allison’s hospital bedside earlier this week, her cancer raging a battle she wouldn’t be able to overcome, the 19-year-old never stopped smiling.

“She kept saying she was going to beat this thing,” her teary-eyed uncle Paul Allison told the Star hours after his niece passed away at Princess Margaret Hospital on Tuesday morning. “She was brave. She was a fighter.”

Even more than a fighter, Carley was an inspiration. She captured the hearts of thousands of viewers with a YouTube video she posted of herself singing a rendition of One Direction’s “More Than This,” while breathing through a breathing tube inserted in her throat during an emergency tracheotomy.

That strength and Carley’s blog detailing her fight with cancer gave the York Mills girl a devout following of patients at Sick Kids Hospital. They dubbed themselves “Carley’s Angels” and together they formed a support network built on uplifting Instagram posts and giggling through doctor’s checkups.

To the Angels and her parents Mark and May, Carley was a beacon of hope. Amidst three rounds of chemotherapy, she continued to sing, play piano and skate competitively.

Though she could no longer water ski, as she had for plenty of summers at the family’s cottage, she loved being at the helm of their boat and never gave up a chance to fiercely defend a raft the Allisons warred about in a friendly battle of the sexes.

“Carley was a tenacious defender of Girl Island, as she called it,” Paul said with a smile. “She would throw the boys off and wrestle with them, never giving up.”

Like the raft, she never gave up on school even after postponing university for a year. She took off for Queen’s University in September in pursuit of a general arts degree, but the experience was cut short when her cancer continued to spread.

From then on, she was in and out of hospital wards, each time returning home to her excited puppy Tobi and sisters Riley and Samantha, who would greet her with welcome-home signs and lights strung in the shape of a heart above her bed.

Not once did she lose faith that she would ditch the disease that was ravaging her lungs and arm.

“If I am dwelling on it or concentrated on the negatives, it will only do me wrong,” she told the Star, after her cancer came back. “I have to stay as positive as I can.”

That was the same message she had for Toronto Maple Leaf captain Dion Phaneuf and his wife Elisha Cuthbert, when they flocked to her bedside a day before her passing.

“When they came, she sat up and her eyes opened wide even though she was going through a tough time,” said her uncle, who joked that she was the Leaf’s lucky charm because every time she sang at one of their games, they pulled off a win.

With Cuthbert and Phaneuf, Paul said, Carley giggled. When they parted, they even left her with a gift — the black peacoat that had caught her eye the moment Cuthbert walked into the room wearing it.

Carley never got to wear the coat. Paul Allison said she would be happy to know that the team held a moment of silence in her honour at Tuesday’s game.

She had twice sung the national anthem at matches, even when her voice began to waver, and became a staple at cancer events throughout the city.

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Paul said she leaves behind a legacy in Carley’s Angels, a charity the family started to honour her life and help others through difficult treatments.

“Her strength and determination she is a pillar of strength and she is a remarkable miracle,” he said, stealing a glance at her photo sitting beside him. “We didn’t have her long, but she made a huge impact. This world was better off with Carley.”