The Diving Bell & The Butterfly

This post is a tribute to my father who passed away this time last year. While watching the Diving Bell & the Butterfly recently, I cried the hardest I have cried over the loss of my father since the day he passed. I do love a good cathartic cry and this movie was just what I needed to help my grieving process.

Here I will quote the bare bones description of the movie I found on Wikipedia:

"The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a 2007 film based on the memoir of the same name by Jean-Dominique Bauby. The film depicts Bauby's life after suffering a massive stroke at the age of 43,^[1] which left him with a condition known as locked-in syndrome. The condition paralyzed him, with the exception of his left eyelid, so that he could only communicate by blinking. The film was directed by Julian Schnabel, written by Ronald Harwood and stars Mathieu Amalric as Bauby. It won awards at the Cannes Film Festival, the Golden Globes and the BAFTA Awards, as well as four Academy Award nominations."

Here I will attempt to describe how it facilitated a great cry of grief over missing my Dad:

I can't. Really. There are a few specific scenes that prompted the tears, but to describe those scenes out of context of the entire beautiful movie is probably futile. If you have experienced the movie already you will remember these scenes. The scene where Bauby is having a flashback of his last visit with his aging and ailing father. He's remembering shaving his father and the banter they had during the shave. And at one point his father (played by Max von Sydow) looks up at him a little bewildered and says he can't remember what he was going to say. Then says, "Oh yes, I'm proud of you." Well, as soon as the shaving scene started I was a puddle. My dad was a brilliant man. But in his final few years he slipped further and further into dementia. He started having seizures and mini-strokes so we had to take care of him. Before we moved him to the nursing home permanently, I would shave him. I also bathed him and changed his diaper. It was heartbreaking to see him deteriorate. He had been my source of stability for most of my life. But even as his mind slipped away, he would remember his family and tell us he loved us.

My dad was a great man. He spent his life in service to his community. He was extremely Christ-like in that I never heard a word of judgment escape his lips. Never. His community service is without a doubt what inspires my servant's heart. Even in the years I was not a Christ follower, I found a way to serve and contribute to my community in positive ways. And I know that he was proud of my serving efforts.

In The Diving Bell & The Butterfly, Bauby at first does not want his children to see him in his paralyzed state. Eventually he decides that being a partial father to his children is better than them not having a father at all. And there is a scene where his children come to spend Father's Day with him. Much of the movie is shot from Bauby's point of view, from his limited view through his left eye. At the end of the Father's Day scene, his children sing a song for him and then the viewer sees (from Bauby's paralyzed view) the children kiss him good-bye. Again, I was a puddle. I imagined what it was like in Dad's final days to feel helpless as his family came to visit in the nursing home and as we kissed him good-bye.

It would have been easy for my dad to give up and sink to the bottom of the ocean in his own private diving bell. But when interviewed by social workers, he never even hinted at self-pity. In fact, he said he knew his strength came from God and he therefore felt blessed. Towards the end of his life, he would ramble about whatever fantasy he was entertaining that day. After seeing this movie, I now know that was his way of remaining a butterfly.