Sanusi Cole, who owned a Baltimore cosmetics store and moved to the United States from Gambia to give his family a better life, died Dec. 10 of complications from heart surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was 38.

Mr. Cole, a father of four, was awaiting a heart transplant when he died. He and his wife, Bassin, moved to New York from Gambia in 1986 in the hope of securing better jobs and better health care for Mr. Cole's heart condition.

Once in the United States, he helped several family members in Gambia move here, including his brother Momodou Cole, a student at Franklin University in Columbus, Ohio.

"He loved the United States," said Momodou Cole. "He loved the freedom."

Mr. Cole and his family moved to Rosedale about five years ago so he could receive treatment at Hopkins. He worked as a toll collector at the Fort McHenry Tunnel until a year ago, when he opened the cosmetics store. He called the store Ayesha Boutique after his mother, who lives in Gambia.

Mr. Cole was featured in a Sun article in September after his Medicaid coverage ran out and he was unable to afford his expensive heart, liver and kidney medications.

A funeral was held Dec. 13 in Baltimore.

Besides his mother, wife and brother, Mr. Cole is survived by two sons, Mahmoud and Paabdou, 2-year-old twins; two daughters, 9-year-old Esatou and 6-year-old Fatou; another brother, Lawalley Cole of Nairobi, Kenya; a sister, Rakey Cole of Silver Spring; and several nieces and nephews.