"Stronger" Video

I saw this yesterday, and I think it's awesome.

A 22 year old leukemia patient at the Seattle Children's Hospital made a video of his fellow patients -- all of them young kids -- lip-synching Kelly Clarkson's song "Stronger."

If you're not familiar with the song, it's about someone who just broke up with her significant other, making it clear that she's doing just fine. The chorus goes:

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger
Stand a little taller
Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone
What doesn't kill you makes a fighter
Footsteps even lighter
Doesn't mean I'm over cause you're gone

It's a fighter's song, no doubt -- very upbeat in music and lyrics. Except for the whole "breaking up" thing, it's a pretty good song for kids who are fighters.

The young man who put the video together spent last Saturday filming his fellow patients (he's much older than most of them, and they saw him as a big brother), plus nurses and other staff, and then put edited all night, posting the video on YouTube on Sunday. As of this morning, it had over 250,000 views.

There's a lesson, and to me it's pretty obvious: kids are fighters, they find ways to push through the darkness, and they have a lot to teach the rest of us.

An MSNBC story about the video is here, and the video itself is embedded below. It's tough to watch kids with cancer sometimes -- though if you're reading this, I'm guessing you can handle it. Plus, these are special kids worth watching.