As Michael Klibaner watched his bride walk down the hall in Puerto Rico during their wedding in 2004, he started to cry.
Klibaner had a reputation for being analytical – especially at science and math school, where he met his future wife and this reporter – and logic would dictate that he had seen Amy enough in the 13 years they dated to maintain their composure.
Only, that big brain was often overshadowed by an even bigger heart.
“Mike was a great idiot,” said Amy Klibaner, his wife for almost 17 years. “He’s the guy who would cry with the Hallmark card ads.”
Nowadays, however, it is everyone’s turn to cry.
Klibaner died of complications from Covid-19 on April 14 – less than a month before he turned 48.
What makes the loss more devastating to his family and friends is that he seemed to be recovering from a relatively controllable case of the virus at his New York City home, relieved that he did not need an emergency trip to a crowded hospital during first weeks of the pandemic. When he passed out in the bathroom of the apartment he shared with his wife and 9-year-old daughter, he was brushing his teeth to get ready for his first walk outdoors in two weeks.
He had a cardiac arrest while paramedics took him down the stairs, the result of what would later be determined to be massive pulmonary embolism.
“They took him to the hospital and, about an hour later, I received a phone call saying that he passed away,” said Amy Klibaner. “It was so unexpected.”
The loss was so sudden, so devastating, that just 10 months later, his family can talk about it. Only now did this reporter have the courage to ask the questions.
Her daughter, Sidney, who turns 10 in June, likes to look at a photograph of her childhood in Shanghai, on which she is propped up on her father’s lap, a hand grabbing her bowl of pasta “to steal your food”, as she puts it. The image reminds her of her father’s smile. He smiled a lot.
“My favorite moment with him is when we swam together because we were going to run and I would always win, but sometimes I would let him,” she said by email.
Born on May 7, 1972, in Brooklyn, Klibaner was destined for a life of learning as the son of two science teachers.
In a way, he grew up as a normal suburban boy on Staten Island, riding a bicycle, watching baseball and collecting collectible cards. Less typical were his elaborate science projects in high school. A first-rate project that stands out particularly for his father, Edwin: a study of how different wavelengths of light affect a mold that grows in horse manure.
“We bypass Staten Island,” he said. “There were people who had horses, and we asked if we could take some of their manure.”
During summers, the Klibaner family packed their car and traveled across the country to epic camps in national parks. And that was when Michael really seemed to be in his element.
“We were always at the rear of the pack, and Michael and his sister, Alyssa, were always in front of the pack with the rangers, and he always asked questions,” said Klibaner’s mother, Roberta. “He always needed to know everything.”
So it was no surprise that Klibaner ended up being accepted to Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan.
Even at a school that drew so many other prodigies from science and mathematics, Klibaner stood out as a student eager to learn more. “We were in the math team circles and I remember being impressed that he was learning the theory of knots,” said colleague John Ledwith.
The resulting project in that confusing field of advanced mathematics earned him a place in the prestigious Westinghouse National Science Talent Search.
At school, Michael seemed to know everyone – including Amy, who at the time was just friends with a friend. That changed when they met again on the Staten Island ferry in the summer after they graduated. Their relationship also formed.
“We kind of saw ourselves as different people when we started to get a chance to meet,” said Amy.
In 1994, Klibaner graduated from Princeton University, where he majored in applied mathematics and for which he maintained the school’s pride throughout his life.
After graduation, Klibaner started his career in finance before finding a niche consultancy for dot-com companies. A year after they were married, the couple moved to Shanghai. Klibaner, who could start a conversation with anyone on almost any topic, made a good enough first impression with a guest at a friend’s wedding to get a job offer at the front desk.
Two years later, he was hired by the Asia Pacific office of Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., a real estate company, where he became head of research in Greater China.
“He was a born coach and mentor to the team, which is a strong quality, especially in China, where at the time we had a very young local workforce eager to learn,” said Klibaner’s boss, Anthony, for five years. Couse, the CEO of the company’s Asia Pacific office.
One of the favorite questions in Klibaner’s interview with the young workforce: How many cows are there across China? He didn’t care about the answer; it was all about reasoning.
“Michael was also not intimidated by the media,” said Couse. “I could always count on him for the difficult TV interviews at 5 am.”
Klibaner’s lifelong love of speaking kept him in demand as an Asian real estate specialist in Western stores like Bloomberg and CNBC.
Sidney was born in 2011 and the family moved to Hong Kong two years later.
In Asia, the family had the opportunity to indulge in Klibaner’s greatest passion – traveling across the continent and beyond. Instead of a tent in a national park, however, he opted for a winery in Capetown, South Africa.
Klibaner kept up other hobbies. He may have outgrown baseball cards, but he remained a collector. He maintained elaborate databases that required a degree in advanced mathematics to decipher – whether they cataloged chic bourbon, contemporary Chinese art or even the films he watched.
He also enjoyed debating politics and found many things about President Donald Trump to discuss. “He knew something about everything in the world,” said his mother. “And if you read his Facebook posts, you know you have an opinion on everything.”
In the summer of 2019, Klibaner was unemployed when he attended the 25-year college meeting. Being so close to their families made Klibaner and his wife think about returning. They did this in August.
While they were here, Klibaner yearned to convey his love of learning to his daughter.
“When we moved back to New York, we won family titles at zoos, museums and the like,” said Amy. “And so we were really looking forward to taking advantage of all the cultural institutions here.”
They didn’t have much of a chance before Michael became ill.
Then everything changed.
Today, her sister, Alyssa Geibel, consoles herself by watching clips on YouTube of Klibaner’s media interviews in Shanghai and Hong Kong.
“Just seeing him alive and well and doing his job brings tears of happiness,” said Geibel. “I’m like, ‘Oh, this is my brother.'”
There is no mathematical formula for dealing with pain – even almost 10 months later.
“I often find myself mired in focusing on loss,” said Amy, “and I forget to remember the peculiarities that made Mike who he was.”