Deceased Wife's Foresight Helps Man Make Progress Bryan Thomas for The New York Times Eugenio German with his daughter Albany and his son, Eugene. Mr. German's wife, Anita Villalongo, died in 2011. The year: 1990. The place: Canóvanas, Puerto Rico. Anita Villalongo was a Puerto Rican, with dramatic cheekbones and skin the color of caramel. Eugenio German was a Dominican, the irises of his eyes chocolate brown rimmed by a deep ocean blue. Eugenio sold ice cream from a pushcart. Anita left her building each day to buy a cone. "There was this thought that Puerto Ricans should be with Puerto Ricans and not with Dominicans," recalled Mr. German, now 49. He didn't care. "She was so flirtatious," he said, "so cute." A friendship turned into a marriage. The couple had three children, Albany, Germany and Eugene, and the family eventually immigrated to New York. "That was a stupendous woman," Mr. German said of his wife. There was too much poverty in that relationship. Too much poverty. But in the most difficult moments, she never turned her back on me. In 2009, Ms. Villalongo became sick. By 2011, she had learned that she had cancer. Mr. German stayed by her side, ferrying her to chemotherapy and rushing home from work when she became anxious. "It was very difficult for me," recalled Mr. German, who works as a deliveryman, running around New York City for a contractor hired by a large office supply company. As his nursing duties increased, he found time to work only one or two shifts a week, he said, making just $75 a day. When Ms. Villalongo died, on March 26, 2011, he found himself the grief-stricken caretaker of three teenage children. "My mom passed away, and he took over," explained his daughter, Albany German, 19, the eldest child. By that time, Mr. German owed nearly $5,000 in rent to his landlord, and it suddenly became more important than ever to gain something he had first sought 15 years before: permanent legal residency. "Here there is work," said Mr. German, who entered the country without a visa, "just not for the indocumentados. And if it appears, it doesn't pay anything. But as soon as you get your papers, then there is life. Many undocumented immigrants are not eligible for permanent legal residency in the United States, even those married to citizens. But Mr. German, in fact, is eligible, according to Kristi Dalling, a lawyer helping him through Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New York, one of the seven agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. A provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act makes an exception for some people who are the beneficiaries of family petitions filed on or before April 30, 2001. Mr. German's wife, who was a citizen, filed a petition for him before that date. To advance his application, however, Mr. German would have to pay a considerable fee, which was impossible in his position as a low-wage deliveryman. Then, in September, he learned from Ms. Dalling at Catholic Charities that he could apply for assistance from The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. The fund gave him $800 to use toward his application. "I had been trying to gather it and gather it," he said of the fee. "And I said to myself, "My God, the $800 have appeared. Things must really be looking up." " It could be months before Mr. German's application is approved, Ms. Dalling said. But if he obtained a visa, Mr. German said, his life would change "in every sense of the word." "I have many connections," he said, rattling off the names of a cleaning company and a trucking company that have offered him work at $20 or $30 an hour, once his residency status changes. He would be able to obtain a driver's license and health insurance, buy a truck and eventually even collect Social Security. "The important thing, the most important thing, is that money for the landlord," he said. But it meant that he would also have the time and resources to achieve another goal: writing the final pages of a book about his wife. An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misstated the name of one of Eugenio German's daughters. Her name is Albany not Liberty.