On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.
("One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.")
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
There was once a little Princess. I met her in a Michigan hospital. She opened her eyes for the first time and looked right at me, seeming to say "oh, so it is you who are my dad".
Four days after she was was born the little Princess got her picture, and the picture was used for her birth announcement; she was held between the arms of her mother and her father. She was still pretty small, this princess. In this picture she gazes at the camera with eyes open and rests her head on her hand, like she is just hanging out with her mother and her dad.
Four months after she was born the little Princess went to Arizona, because her mother was graduating and wanted to be in the ceremony and her parents wanted a picture of her in her mother's arms as she posed in her graduation gown with her diploma, her honors award and celebratory tassel. She seemed OK with that too, although her cry was loud enough to fill the graduation hall, and she had to endure a three hour flight coming just after a three and a half wait on the tarmac to get there. But she didn't say anything, although her parents cussed a bit.
The snake came for her mother after she was one year old.