Pablo Ortiz

The Paradigm of Patience
Pablo Ortiz had been a military man, a Navy Seal, and he had a military discipline. He was fussy. He was relentlessly neat. "He liked his clothes ironed a certain way," said his wife, Edna Kang-Ortiz. "They had to be ironed legs first and the crease had to be perfect. The shirts couldn't have any wrinkles. I tried to do it and couldn't please him."

Fine. He handled the laundry. He ironed her clothes too, and did they look good.

Before they got married in March of last year, they compared their strong and weak points. Mrs. Kang-Ortiz confessed she was a terrible cook. No problem. He did all the cooking.

Mr. Ortiz, 49, superintendent of construction for the Port Authority, lived in Staten Island with his wife, and she liked to say, "People come into your life to teach you a lesson. He taught me a lot of lessons. I was materialistic. I have become less materialistic. I learned from his strength. I learned from his patience."

In May, the sister of Mrs. Kang-Ortiz had some difficulties and needed to move to the Ortiz home with her two children. Mr. Ortiz was entirely supportive. "He would say to me, 'As long as you're happy, it's cool,"' his wife said. "His feeling was, 'You make the wife happy, you're happy.'"