I first met my grandfather at his funeral. I stood in the airy white Minnesotan church, uncomfortable in my funeral clothing and my surroundings as a minister led hymns I didn’t know, about faiths I don’t share.

Once we were young and warriors.
Once our wings beat strong to carry us to the high places near the sun.
Once we stood on summits with frosty breath.
We saw Africa, Europe, Alaska and the mighty Himalayas
Spread out in majestic panoply below us,
The power and solitude of the peaks awesome.

John and I didn’t know our grandfather “Poppy” well. Different factions of my family would point fingers for why that’s the case, but for me it was just a fact of growing up. I loved him by default. But I didn’t know him.

Poppy was more of a legend than a grandparent for us. We idolized the breadcrumbs of his life we mananged to collect. We recited them to friends like they were the stats of a pro athlete:

• Poppy was one of the first Navy SEALS, ever
• He was in the CIA, and he was sent to Ghana to help bring down their dictator
• He was a Golden Gloves Boxer
• He ran at least six NYC marathons
• He was President of Outward Bound for 10 years
• He swam with sharks… enough said

His death wasn’t a tragedy; it was a sadness, a sadness marking the graceful exit of a great man. He wrote to me in the year before he died that he was sad to be reaching the end, but he knew he’d made the most of his time: “Oh, what a life I’ve lived!”

And it was sadness I felt in the sun-filled church, holding the program that outlined Poppy’s egress. Holding the poem “Once.”

Once our arms were sinewy and tan as we rushed down the magnificent rivers —
The Colorado, the Bio Bio, the Green, the Yampa, the Salmon, the Chattooga.
We marveled at the power of the great drops and holes
As we planned our routes through the maelstrom with pounding hearts.

I have read hundreds of books, thousands of pages, and countless words. But I have never discovered words so perfectly fitted to my world. They mirror the wanderlust in my bones. The words are adventure, joy, exploration, and youth, captured on a many times folded page. They are starry nights camping; adrenaline on a turbulent river; grief and love and idealism; they are curiosity and lust for the world.

We spoke at night around the fire in the depths of canyons carved 100 million years ago.
We felt small and knew the impermanence of our passing.
Tomorrow we would be gone.
A million years hence the river would still be there carving its way to the sea.

Deciding what you’ve inherited from your family is like trying to figure out a recipe by eating the cake: you separate blended flavors and tastes to determine what the original ingredients must have been. I think we all enjoy tracing our interests and strengths back through our lineage – it’s a way to confirm where you come from and how you’re connected to the world. For example, the storytelling comes from my aunt; the goofy drawings from my grandmother; the humor from my mom; and the inability to sing runs through the whole Bachman clan. And everyone plays the same game for each other:

“Oh, you get your love of gardening from your grandparents.”*

“You’re a natural chef – just like your mom!”*

Having been raised for most of my life by one side of my family, sometimes this recipe got a little creative. But we always made it work.

Once our lives stretched out endlessly to horizons unknown.
That we felt up to new tasks was a given–we would give it a try.
We courted risk because it made us seem whole.
We wanted to go where others had not gone.
We thought to build our concept of self–which was fragile–
By doing what others did not dare do.

But “Once” changed the narrative. I read and re-read the poem throughout Poppy’s memorial. I held a small shard of color, a piece of his creativity in my hands. I was meeting him for the first time, and I was smitten. One of his favorite quotes on the back of the program hit me just as hard, and to this day it hangs in my room:

The car ride home from the memorial was thick with reflection. John and I had said farewell to a man we revered but hadn’t known. Not in the way we know the lilt of our aunt’s silly voices, or how our mom prefers her coffee. The way we know every timbre of our grandmother’s laugh and our grandfather’s deft fingers as he ties on fishing flies. Every person is made up of so many tiny, wonderful details. And we only knew the stats on Poppy’s baseball card.

The car pulled into the driveway, and we slowly unfolded from our cocoons of grief. We talked around the edges of “Once.” I admitted I had a favorite stanza, and John admitted he had one, too. We both paused. It was a long poem by most measures, with at least 4 pages of verse. Yet we knew we loved the same lines:

Once we sought to change the world and set off to do secret things.
Was it hubris?  Of course.  Did it change the world?  Maybe an inch.
But was it worth it?  Yes.

This small moment of serendipity – one perfect stanza in a perfect poem – was enough. We didn’t know Poppy, but we’re connected to him. Through years of separation, divorce, other people’s battles, and different lives, he’s in our DNA – our recipe.

John has his name, and I have his words. Like him, we are young, and we are warriors. We crave the heady impermanence starry skies and bonfires lend us, with pounding hearts. We are foolish and full of hubris.

That’s when the real tragedy hit me. Not that I had lost a grandfather, but that I had lost a kindred spirit I didn’t know I had. I don’t wish Poppy had been to more of my childhood soccer games; I wish I had firelit evenings on the banks of the Yampa with him. I wish I could know Poppy today, when I am still becoming the writer I’m meant to be – saturated with words, wine, and adventure.

I want to know more than his breadcrumbs; I want to discuss African politics, kayaking, and what my first mountain should be. I want to know what his favorite adjectives are and what jumping out of a helicopter feels like.

We don’t get that option. Instead, John and I will carve our own adventures into this world, from Vietnam to South Africa. Write stories of our own. Read “Once,” remember Poppy, and try to change an inch of the world.

*I inherited neither of these skills. Go figure.