When I first walked through the front door of the house that, unknowingly at the time, would help shape and define my adulthood, I smelled food.

Once I actually got into the kitchen, I saw copious amounts of it. I was flattered, really, that the parents of the girl I had just started dating would go to such trouble for little old me.

The massive kitchen table had bowls filled with all kinds of deliciousness: fruits, steamed vegetables, rolls, seasoned potatoes, chips, dips, salad, and like five kinds of dressing. There, in the middle, sat what must have been half a cow.

I could hang here – oh, I could definitely hang here.

Coming from a small family of three – just my parents and I – I’d never seen that much food for a Tuesday night dinner at home unless it was a holiday.

The family sat down – all seven of them – and proceeded to say grace and eat maybe half of the food on the table. For a little bit, I thought that perhaps someone had not joined us, a friend of a sibling, another family member I did not know about yet, or they were simply trying to empty the fridge of some items that were nearing expiration.

About a week later, I was back (sweet! I scored a return invite!), and the same thing happened again.

With what I can assume was roughly half a chicken farm plopped into the middle of the table, surrounded again by sides, sides of sides, distant cousins of sides, multiple grains of bread options and sauces for whatever your palette desired, I dove in.

Once again, there were plenty of leftovers.

Once again, the family said grace.

It didn’t take me long to realize that I enjoyed being well fed.

Soon, I understood that it had little to do with the food.

I quickly fell in love with the woman who became my wife, but I also fell in love with everything that made her, well, her: her faith and her family.

Soon, I began attending Sunday Mass with her and her family, just so I could stay a little longer. Confused on when to stand and when to kneel, but feeling like it was where I was meant to be, my soul began to feel well fed, too.

Her parents and siblings were loud and full of jokes and constantly moving. In general, my life became well fed with activity, with a sense of belonging to them.

When our marriage combined our families, I’d like to think we were well fed here, as well. My parents parties, quirks and traditions merged with my wife’s and vice versa. My parents and my in-laws merged together well.

As my wife and I started to expand our family, we noticed these little things that made us feel so, well, fed. Little gestures, little moments, tokens and symbols.

Many of these things came from my mother-in-law, perhaps one of the most quietly kind, thoughtful and caring women I’ve ever met. And when I say quiet, she never wanted anyone to know, her gestures and love were personal and to be shared with the people she was sharing with, not for external praise or gratitude.

Protective of her first-born daughter, she had to make sure I would stay, that I would be good, that I would be strong for her child. And once I proved that, well, the tokens and gestures of appreciation for how happy I made her daughter came in waves.

Once, a few months after we were married, I casually mentioned in the course of conversation how functional and cool I thought NorthFace fleece jackets were at one of our Sunday afternoon meals at their house.  I quietly mentioned to my wife I’d like to get one in the future, as I had not had one before, but it would be good for the fall and early winter.

My mother-in-law had overheard this, and a few days later, quietly handed me a bag with a new NorthFace jacket in it.

“Hey Bri, I saw this while I was out the other day and grabbed it, hope it fits and is what you were thinking of,” she said.

I was stunned. It wasn’t Christmas or my birthday, and I didn’t even think she had heard me. I thanked her repeatedly, but she just smiled and waved it off.

“It’s no big deal,” she said, moving into the kitchen to – you guessed it – prepare a smorgasbord.

These moments were frequent over the years: favorite meals, pumpkin pies, random clothing bags – and obviously, not just for me. For everyone. Meals remained large. Guests, friends of friends, all were welcome to the table, no matter the hour.

They did this for everyone, from friends of friends to people they had never even met. And it was always time to grab a beer or a glass of wine.

At restaurants, they picked up the check every time, without hesitation. If you are fast – which I think happened about five times in 12 years – you could get the bill and pay for it before they did. Of course, then they were on to you and they’d ensure before we even ordered that the bill would be going to them at every meal for the next year.

Well fed, indeed.

The giving never stopped, through three weddings, several graduations, and numerous births of grandchildren. They helped watch our children so my wife could work, re-arranging schedules to help accommodate ours. We’d walk in to watch a football game at their house to find a massive box of diapers sitting by the back door.

“Can never have too many of those!” they’d laugh.

The giving never stopped, not even after my mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer in late 2013. She kept her illness quiet for the majority of the battle, forging through treatment, chemo, and surgeries. Through it all, they kept giving. Giving to their children, to extended family, to strangers.

They just kept feeding us.

The weekly meals never really stopped. The gifts, tokens, gestures never stopped. Mass on Sunday never stopped.

Our hearts were broken however, when the cancer took my mother-in-law to Heaven last month.

But in our grief, there is a realization that the cancer did not win. We won’t let it. Though the past 30 days have been incredibly difficult at times, now, I feel like I understand what this has all been about, what it is all for.

We were well fed.

In my writing, I rarely speak of faith and scripture.

But these days, it feels like it jumps out of everything I see and do. My mother-in-law’s life can be best described simply by Matthew 28:19. You see, she went and made disciples, people who would give, who would love, who would make those around them well fed.

This begins with her children. My brothers-in-law, good men who give back in their own uniquely talented way, through church, through friends, to their family. My wife’s sister, to dogs in need of rescue, to friends in need of a hug, of love and support, to her husband, to her gym. My wife, to her children, to her friends, her church, through coaching and teaching history, health and nutrition.

And they, in turn, have made disciples with their spouses. This is life, this is what we were meant to do: leave the world better than we found it. Someway, somehow. We often doubt we’re making an impact, we can grow frustrated at the mundane, the imperfect world around us. But on further review, we’re impacting others’ lives every day in the ways that matter the most: consistent love.

We live on in how we lived in the first place.

Today, somewhere in place I can only dream and imagine of, my mother-in-law is now the one well fed, perhaps hearing what can only be described as long deserved:

“Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let us celebrate together.”

Now, it is our turn.

We celebrate her life by doing our best to carry on that legacy and doing our small part to make the world well fed in mind, body and spirit, each in our own way.

There’s a reason we always had food leftover.

Others need to be well fed, too.

Because there is always room for more at a table of plenty.