World War III

I like to joke and tell people that if they missed WWIII, it's because they didn't live in the Skidmore household from approximately 1998-2001 (which just happens to be the exact years I attended high school. Complete coincidence.) Some people would call our family dramatic. I prefer the term passionate. Shelby was not being dramatic when she climbed on the roof and threatened to kill herself if I didn't let her sleep with the dog. She was simply very passionate about the fact the Isabell needed a good nights rest. And I was not being dramatic when I ran to my room crying on Valentine's Day because the card my father gave me took 2 lines to say, “Happy Valentine's Day, sweetie. I love you,” while the card he gave my sister took 8 lines to say the exact same thing. I was simply passionate about the fact that the love (and lines) needed to be equally distributed among siblings. If there was a game called “Passion,” and my family played, my dad would briefly regret his third place victory (while claiming he had "nothing to prove" by wining a game), Shelby and I would be yelling/crying over who got second place, and my mom would, without a doubt, be singing “I won, I won, I really really won” in a mock opera voice. My mom is many things, but what makes her “Millie” is her passion. And I don’t mean drama. I mean passion. Just today, she took my great aunt coffee (as she does every day), made Christmas gifts for all her niece’s teachers, took her sister dinner, ran errands for Shelby, helped me make 20 Christmas gifts for my colleagues at work, and took me and Christian out to eat. If that doesn’t take passion, I don’t know what does. And I didn’t even tell you about her plans for tomorrow. She is an endless supply of selfless energy, and, unlike OPEC’s, hers is completely free. It doesn’t cost a thing. I guess what I’m trying to say is that she loves like Christ loves: without any catches, expectations or ulterior motives. She loves because Christ loved her first. Now that’s worth being dramatic about.