MILAN – Before freestyle skier Birk Irving leaps into the ravenous jaws of the beast, he routinely smiles like a hero in a paperback novel.

Oh, what a tale his thoughts could tell.

Irving competes in the cold and unforgiving halfpipe, where Olympic dreams go to die.

“A 22-foot tall monster,” as Irving likes to call it.

But when he hucks into the abyss at the Winter Games, this 26-year-old skier from Winter Park will relentlessly attack the beast with fearless words of a feisty grandfather ingrained in his heart. Gramps likes to write inspirational little messages before big competitions. He’s damn good at it.

“He sends me very long, well-written emails,” Irving told me Friday, “His text messages are better than my high school and college research papers.”

OK, how would these words rate as powerful encouragement for an Olympian in a sport where gravity must be defied on a regular basis?

If you are lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it.

Way back in the late 1980s, John Irving came up with that sweet slice of poetry for a novel he named  “A Prayer for Owen Meany.”

The grand patriarch of a family of superstar skiers from Grand County used to enjoy clicking into the bindings of freshly waxed boards, but his first athletic love was always wrestling. In fact, that sport was the inspiration for the 1978 bestseller, later made into a hit movie starring Robin Williams, called “The World According to Garp.”

Irving has sold more than 10 million copies of his work, has had too many bestsellers to count translated in 35 languages and won an Academy Award for his screen adaptation of “The Cider House Rules.”

So imagine what magic Grandpa Irving can do with a text message.

Think he’s a winky-face emoji guy?

“He’s always texting and calling. He watches all our events. Very supportive. Wishes he could be here with us,” said Svea Iriving, who describes her grandfather very succinctly as: “The Author.”

Yes, with a capital “T” and a capital “A,” for those of you keeping score at home.

Now, please forgive me, for I have been remiss in introducing the female lead in this story for far too long.

Growing up in Grand Country, Birk hit his first successful 360 on skis at age 5 and landed a sponsor only two years later. He has never looked back.

Well, except maybe a time or two for his younger sister, who has relentlessly tagged along all the way to Italy, where they both will compete for Team USA in the half pipe during the final week of the Olympic Games.

The siblings walked together on Friday in the opening ceremony before heading back with teammates to training camp at Livigno Snow Park in the Alps.

“When we were really young kids, we fought a lot,” Svea said. “But ever since we’ve been on the U.S. team, it’s been very special. We get to travel the world together.”

If not for the crisp mountain air of Colorado, and more than a little inspiration from the go-big or go-home Rail Yard terrain park at Winter Park, Birk and Svea might’ve instead been trying to escape a smelly wrestling room in their grandfather’s neck of the woods, where he lives in New England.

Birk sheepishly admits to fulfilling an obligation to grapple with the family tradition at wrestling practices all the way through middle school. The memory of her big bro in rasslin’ tights can still make Svea laugh.

“I have no relationship with wrestling,” she explained, with more than a trace of defiance. “That was my grandfather’s thing.”

But I’m going to award Birk and Svea three points each for a takedown. These freewheeling, skiing siblings have reduced an American literary giant into just an everyday doting grandparent.

Earlier this week, Gramps fired up the Facebook machine to do a little humble bragging: “I grew up in a family of skiers – in which I was always the weakest skier. My son Brendan is the director of the Ski Patrol at Winter Park … After years of dedication and commitment, Birk and Svea are on the U.S. ski team going to Italy. I’m very proud of them. You don’t get to be Olympians overnight.”

The great American novelist who wrote until his words turned him into a pop culture icon is now 83 years old. He’s closer to the end than the beginning of a wonderful life.

The gleam that Birk and Svea give their grandpa now reminds me of a paragraph I highlighted in a tattered paperback novel that has been given a place of honor on my bookshelf for nearly half a century.

You know, everybody dies. My parents died … I’m going to die too. So will you. The thing is, to have a life before we die. It can be a real adventure having a life.

– John Irving, “The World According to Garp”