Jean Bauby, the French editor of Elle, a gregarious and witty man, suffered a massive stroke rendering him completely paralysed and imprisoned in an inert body. He communicated solely by blinking his left eye. Bauby produced a ground-breaking memoir, written by blinking as a companion recited the alphabet. This memoir, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was published just before he died and is now a bestseller throughout Europe. The book captures the daily realities of his situation, Bauby , a father of two children, remained only a shadow or a fragment of a father but still a father to his ten year old son and eight year old daughter. His family celebrated and sugar coated any celebration such as Father’s Day or even birthdays where Bauby could see his children living, moving, laughing or crying knowing that his paralysis was not ideal entertainment for his young family. His condition induced despair and claustrophobia since he was used to a highly active lifestyle. Bauby champions the marginalised, celebrating the triumph of the human spirit, forcing readers not to squander the ultimately precious gift of life. ‘Today it seems my whole life was nothing but a string of near misses; a race whose result we all know beforehand but in which we fail to bet on the winner’. .