I didn’t really get to know my grandfather—my mum’s dad, Fred. He died when I was young, and because we emigrated from the UK to Canada when I was even younger, we didn’t see him very often when he was alive. Once a year, in the summer, we’d go and visit.

My mostly thin memories of him involve sports. We played cricket in the lane behind his little house, and I support @BurnleyOfficial because of him. He took my mum to Turf Moor when she was a girl. I saw my first game there, too. Burnley wasn’t a choice. It was our inheritance.

Recently, my parents dug out some old photographs, and I was struck especially by the ones of my grandfather. Here is the earliest one we have. He’s just a boy here, with the first of what turned out to be many dogs at his feet.

Here is another—now he’s a young man. You can tell it’s him, though, right? Same cheeky grin. Different dog.

Here he is during the war, grown up and harder chinned. He was a dog handler in Africa. I can remember him telling me how much he grew to hate camels. But he never lost his love of dogs.

And one more—a clipping from late in his life, when he was a postman. He always had a dog walking beside him. This is Sam, the first of my grandfather’s dogs that I can remember. I also remember cuddling his last dog, Tigger, with the warmth of the fire on his shiny black coat.

Sometimes I wonder about how we become who we are: What is free will? What is predetermined? How much of our lives are up to us? I wonder what my grandfather would think, knowing that I still support his team. Whether that would please or surprise him.

I like to imagine we would have been good friends, watching football, extolling the virtues of dogs. I look at these pictures, at his lifetime of loyal companions, and wish I knew more of their names. But I can still divine the sort of man he was, and the man I’m supposed to be.