I never thought that wearing a 50-year-old Polo my mom found in a box in our basement would mean so much to me.

“Are you wearing Grandpa Leslie’s shirt?” she questioned as we walked into school one morning. I shook my head yes. I liked the shade of blue, the thing fabric was worn and soft.

I didn’t know my grandpa Leslie, so the item seemed nothing more than some sort of family heirloom at first. My brother’s middle name and my older cousin were named after him, that was the extent of my knowledge. I began to wonder about the shirt and its original owner. I had heard his name several times before. Why did my mom smile so big when she saw I was wearing it?

Throughout my day at school thoughts of Leslie consumed my mind. I decided to ask her about him. My grandma explained that Grandpa Leslie was one of the sweetest God ever made. He was loving, patient, loyal, caring, hardworking, and even-tempered. Leslie grew up and had two half brothers and one-half sister that were all older than him. He played football. He roller-skated with my great-grandma. At age 17 he went into the Marines during World War II and was a tail gunner. Leslie worked for the B&O railroad as a maintenance man and worked in the engines, as his father was an engineer. He always wanted to be a farmer but didn’t have land. He turned his love for the outdoors into a love for trees in which he created his own nursery, the L&R Nursery.

Out of all the things I discovered, the thing that struck me was when my grandma told me how much Leslie would have loved me. Never in my life had I taken deep thought into my ancestry. It was strange to think that a man I had never known could have loved someone he never got to meet. I don’t personally know Leslie, but I feel like I have a small piece of him now and I know that in some unfamiliar way we both share a love for one another.