Wrested indecorously, suddenly, brutishly, and unceremoniously from his bereaved colleagues, students, scholars and friends, Sheldon’s untimely death has left an irremediable vacuum for the foreseeable future. A pensive loner whose agitated mind never really left him alone, he was continuously deep in thought, more often than not about the flawed and pitiful initiatives on regional integration. Jamaican by birth, he was the quintessential Caribbean man by social disposition and political affiliation. He was equally at home in Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago or in Jamaica, land of 
his birth. In Guyana, his services were gratefully engaged by the Caribbean Community, headquartered in Guyana and exemplifying the heartbeat of the regional integration movement. In Trinidad, his services were engaged by the Association of Caribbean States which held out viable prospects of a wider geographical integration movement. In effect, the essence of his being was the achievement of an ever maturing regional economic integration movement.
Mostly alone, either as a young, enthusiastic, inquisitive political activist in Havana or a more mature, experienced diplomatic representative of Jamaica, his personal, private ruminations were as incisive as his guttural resonating laughter which was irrepressively infectious and wont to drive an unwarily infected audience to peals of laughter. Would it were that critical decision-makers of the region were as engrossed as Sheldon Ayon McDonald in thinking about, and, more importantly, thinking through regional integration to its ineluctable conclusion. Commencing his youthful political career as an enthusiastic regional integrationist in the People’s National Party (PNP) of Mr. Michael Manley, Sheldon Ayon McDonald ended his life as the sole, authoritative, concerned tutor of regional integration and Head of the Department of Law of the University of Guyana. As an academic, he distinguished himself at Carleton University of Canada where he established his credentials by inscriptions on the Dean’s list for every year between 1984 and 1987. At Carleton, he benefitted from the F.W. Baldwin Memorial Scholarship (1984), the Murdock Maxwell MacOdrum Scholarship and the Senate Medal for Outstanding Academic Achievement in 1987.
Sheldon subsequently proceeded to the University of Nottingham, England, where he was awarded the