An afternoon spent playing with cousins burning off energy.

A request for a detour before the hour and fifteen minute ride home.

“Can we see where you and daddy got married?”

With a blanket of snow covering the ground I am in no rush to head back to Columbus, so we park the car and head into Weaver Chapel.

The name does not do the chapel justice as the massive cathedral looms large over the University where their dad and I met, fell in love and started our lives on a November day in 1999.

“You walked this whole thing Momma and Daddy stood at the end?”.

I told them of the day and memories now 15 years old.

We giggled thinking about Daddy with a full head of hair and Momma in a big poofy dress.

We held hands and talked about what it was like to walk down that long, long aisle with all of those eyes upon you.

And as we left Audrey paused, “Momma thank you for taking us here. It was so cool to see where you and daddy got married.”

It hits me like a crushing wave the importance of this moment.

The marriage did not endure, but it does not mean the precious moments of that union should not be celebrated and recounted for these girls.

It would be all too easy for he and I to brush those pieces of our lives aside and march forward with quiet determination to do things better the next time.

But these girls were born out of love.

And to walk away from these memories is to deny them the foundation of their lives.

So together we will relive these moments.

We will smile.

We will laugh.

We will celebrate a union that resulted in the three most precious gifts one could ever hope for.