Our brother left us too early, we are not ready to let him go.  Our lives are forever changed, and we will miss him terribly.  We will miss his open arms and his face full of joy and excitement whenever we come to visit him. We will miss his humor, positive energy, his undivided attention, and his love.

Eskinder's home was where our family gathered and where mom spent her time while in America.  The sorrow of losing our mom this time last year, when he needed her the most, was too much for him to bear.

We have vivid memories of our brother when we were growing up, a childhood filled with love and adventure.  Once, when our brother Eskinder was 12 years old, he started to breed doves! He was known in the neighborhood as the kid who fell through a roof while trying to rescue one.  He talked our parents into building a coop for the birds, and four became eight, eight became sixteen and more and more and more.  They had beautiful colors, shapes and sizes, he let them out every morning and they happily came home to eat, sleep, and sit on his shoulder when he came home from school.  He even sold some to the neighborhood kids. Our brother was both a dove whisperer and a unique young entrepreneur.

In America, he worked with the same passion and dedication for forty-four years.  First as a produce manager,  in the grocery business in NJ. and later after graduating from Florida Culinary Institute, he pursued his passion for cooking as a chef, at the Raindancer Steakhouse in West Palm Beach, the Jupiter Beach Resort, in Jupiter,  and at Aramark convention centers in; Baltimore, Virginia, Louisiana, Tampa and Texas. Most recently he worked at Yacht StarShip Cruises & Events in Tampa, Florida.

Always enthusiastic and energetic about his work, in his last days at the hospital he did look back at his life with a question for us to answer for our own lives when he said "I worked hard for forty-four years".

Yes, our brother was ready to see the world, to visit the country and family and friends he left behind, but his plans were cut short. Losing him so soon has broken our hearts.