When Laura Abzal’s orange 1969 Volkswagen Beetle got stuck in an Oak Park alley snow bank decades ago, Nabil Abzal stepped outside with a cigarette dangling from his mouth and pushed her out.

Two years later, the two met at a bar and Laura Abzal later learned that her eventual husband of nearly 40 years was the one who helped her in a moment of need without asking for anything in return.

“If you were a stranger in the street who needed help, he’d stop,” Laura Abzal said. “He didn’t know me. He wasn’t even dressed for Chicago winter but he pushed me out of a snow bank that I stupidly put myself into.”

“He wasn’t perfect, I wasn’t perfect, but we were perfect for each other,” she added.

Nabil Abzal, 63, was pulled from the DuSable Harbor around 3 a.m. Saturday and pronounced dead at the

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