The Dikov family keeps an album of photos that document the love story of their son, Aleksander, and his wife, Yingyi Li-Dikov. On each page, they beam, always hugging. In one, Ms. Li-Dikov kneels over a heart drawn in the sand, the initials A and Y at its center.
And on another page is a black-and-white photo: the hazy sonogram of the daughter they were expecting in the fall.
There will be no pictures of mother and child. Ms. Li-Dikov, 30, was killed on Sunday when a giant tree toppled in Kissena Park in Queens, shattering the bench she was resting on and killing her. The 6-month-old fetus did not survive.
“The way I am experiencing it now, I want to go somewhere; I don’t know where,” Mr. Dikov, 20, said, standing in front of his parents’ apartment building, where the couple lived, the day after his wife was killed. “When I am in the car, I just keep driving. I feel like I’m going to go and meet her right now, and then we stop, and everything comes back to me.”
Theirs was an unconventional relationship of immigrant experiences within divergent cultures. His family is from Bulgaria, nested in an apartment complex on Parsons Boulevard in Queens. She came from China and obtained a master’s degree in sports management from Ithaca College. After graduating, she worked a desk job at the Flushing Y.M.C.A. on Northern Boulevard.
That is where the two met four years ago. She was in her mid-20s, and he was a teenager; she approached him while he was using the gym equipment.
“She was eating a muffin, and I was working out, and she asked me if I wanted some muffin,” he said. He realized the odd gesture was a flirtation.
The dates in Chinatown that followed soon turned serious. He eventually enlisted in the Army National Guard. She moved to San Antonio to be with him during basic training, where she cooked him meals every night.
After they moved back to New York, she started an online business selling clothing. They married more than a year ago in a civil ceremony in Queens. She wore a blue dress.
After the couple found out Ms. Li-Dikov was pregnant, they began stockpiling baby clothes and dreaming up baby names. They had not settled on a name: he liked Christina, a traditional name that satisfied his Bulgarian parents. She suggested naming their daughter after the Chinese word for moonlight.
On Sunday evening, Ms. Li-Dikov was strolling in Kissena Park. It was one of her favorite ways to pass the time. At some point, she sat on one of the many green benches.
It is unclear why the tree fell. The New York City parks department has been the subject of lawsuits after several injuries and deaths caused by falling trees and limbs in recent years for failing to remove ailing trees.
In an e-mail statement on Monday a spokesman for the parks department, Arthur Pincus, called the episode “a tragic accident.” According to the statement, the 70-year-old tree was 50 feet tall and snapped about 8 feet from the ground.
That area of the park had been inspected as recently as June 20, according to the statement.
Mr. Dikov has not yet settled on funeral arrangements.
On Monday afternoon, Mr. Dikov ducked under yellow caution tape to the site of his wife’s death. The tree still lay across the splintered bench. His parents beside him, he laid flowers down while wearing his National Guard uniform.
His sobs filled the air of the quiet park.
“I was looking forward to having a baby,” he said later. “Having a baby girl.”
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: August 6, 2013
An earlier version of this article misstated the surname of Yingyi Li-Dikov, who was killed by a falling tree, in some instances. The surname is Li-Dikov, not Li.
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