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Michel P. Colbert: More Than a Good Résumé

 

Michel P. Colbert had the ideal résumé, the kind that might appear in a how-to book about résumés. A master's degree from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. A succession of lucrative jobs in Paris, London and Milan. Fluency in French and Spanish. A balanced range of interests, from photography to scuba diving.

"I have developed proprietary mathematical models for yield curve analysis, embedded basis options," he wrote, in the resume that helped him secure a job as a high-level bond trader with Cantor Fitzgerald.

But did Mr. Colbert really talk like that? No. And does his résumé completely reflect who he was? Of course not.

Michel Colbert was, more than anything else, the only child of Raymond and Marie Colbert. The parents were so close to their son that all three lived in the same apartment building in West New York, N.J., and ate dinner together just about every other night, said Raymond Colbert. "And weekends, of course. And holidays."

He was 39 years old. His parents are both 79. And now time crawls. "Only child, you know?" said Raymond Colbert. "We are 16- C; he was 18-G."

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From "Profiles in Grief" of The New York Times