Remembering Molly Holzschlag

Really good.

All right, livestream is up, so we are ready whenever you're ready.

Waiting for Sarah and Casey. Casey got lost somewhere in the park. Okay, there's no, there's no numbers on the cabanas. The maps online don't show which cabana it's at. So there's probably a little playground somewhere else. Stacy was over there, so she has to now come over here, and she will always caregiver out there to help her. So I blacked out. I was just solo traveling. Oh, I was just by myself. Oh, okay. No problem at all. I had, yeah, I had, um, I had edited what you wrote so that it was here.

Yeah, yeah, the insurance travel insurance is very expensive.

It says September 10th.

No, my flight got in like super late last night.

It's to the right of the pool.

Take the lane and run right into it.

I'm sorry about that. She called me.

How are you?

I'm good.

Well, no, so it was so.

Yeah.

Do you want me to wait?

I moved there in 1942.

Yeah.

Anyone who'd like to get a copy of the slideshow or just be remembered, please sign our little sign-in sheet. So anyway, so. I did.

Yeah, I mean.

I got one done.

Good for you. Like a Rubik's Cube. Rubik's Cube.

Yeah. And I'm teaching a class that I would use some of my abilities.

Greetings everyone.

Hello.

Hello. Greetings all. We are starting. Thank you for coming to this celebration of life for Molly and her husband, my sister. Those who don't know, I'm Morris, her younger brother. That's Linus, her other younger younger brother.

He's over here.

And a few notes, um, if you didn't already figure this out, all of the Jewelry and small art objects and photos are things that are here for you to select keepsakes from. Please take whatever you and your loved ones can use. There's so much, and she would want it being enjoyed. There's water in the cooler over there. There are padded chairs that someone has brought. The framed artwork you see around, if it's not got a blanket over it, it's still looking for someone to adopt it. My brother is going to do the traditional Jewish mourner's Kaddish, and then I will read the eulogy, and then we'll be sharing our memories about Molly after that. The music you were hearing was Molly's 1989 album Molly Blue, which is only available on cassette, but shortly will be available by digital form.

And I will—

if you sign up on the signing list with your email, we can be in touch whenever you If you want, then I might have a couple digitally I'll get for you at that point.

All right, as Mo said, I'm Linus.

I am Molly's younger, younger brother.

Um, I will be reciting the Mourner's Kaddish, which I have copies of here for anybody who wants to follow along.

Actually, there's some more here.

Um, and I think I have one in my pocket. Um, if you're reading in English, I'll be reading the Hebrew, but if you're reading in English, you'll notice that the Mourner's Kaddish doesn't say anything about death. It is a celebration of life, an acknowledgement of someone's place in the world while they're alive, and of the people who continue to breathe life into their memory once they've passed. So this is not a Morgan prayer is a prayer that is very much about us here. Yitgadal v'yitgadash shemir raba. This might be better if I use my reading glasses. Yitgadal v'yitgadash shemir raba. Bi alma di hurah hurite.

וימליך מלכותי.

איך יהיה כה יום ראשון? הוא היה בהו בית ישראל. בא גאלה ובזמן חביב ויראו עמם. And if you're following along on transliteration, Morris, you may want to join me with the יהי שמי רבה עבורה לילום העונה יומיים. יתברא וישבע ויתפר ויתרמן ויתנשא ויתהדר ויתהלך ויתהלל. שמי ביקושו ויראו לילה מין קובר חתא וישרתא תושבחתא ונחמתא דיאמרן בילמא ואמרו אמן יהי שלמה רבה מין שמיה וחיים עלינו ויעקול ישראל ואמרו אמן עושה שלום במרמיו הוא יעשה שלום עלינו ויעקול ישראל ויעקול יושבי תבל ואמרו אמן.

Would you like to just build a champion?

Do you want to do the English as well?

Okay. I also want to welcome everyone who's watching us on livestream or who watches us later. And I wrote up this eulogy over the last few days, and I think it's easier for me to read it than to try to handwrite it because it will probably make more sense to you. So here we go. It's so hard to write a eulogy with a swirl of emotions one has after the loss of a sibling. I've decided to share with you some biographical notes and memories about my one-of-a-kind sister, Molly Esther Holstein. Malka, Molls, my big sister. She came into this world in Brooklyn, New York on January 25th, 1963, the firstborn to my parents and exactly on their 5th anniversary. Family photo albums were filled with pictures of Molly. In the way that first children often get starved ill. My mother used to tell us she had wanted to have 6 daughters. That is, at least until she realized how exhausting she found raising her energetic, inquisitive children. My very first memory is visual. I'm in a wooden crib, and it must be night, as the only source of light is a warm yellow hourglass-shaped beam coming from a red metal lamp on a dresser next to my crib. On the other side of that dresser is a little blonde, wide-eyed Molly in her bed looking at me in a tender way. I feel a sensation of being loved and protected. When I relayed this image to my sister, she was visibly moved. She also confirmed that this was the exact arrangement of furnishings in the bedroom in our Brooklyn apartment, which we left when I was 1 year old to the day. It astounds me that this memory has stayed with me. Throughout my early childhood, Molly was a kind of guide. She and I went to the same yeshiva on school days, which is a religious Jewish school, and she would assure I got to my classroom, and she would also show me how the world worked. One day she took me to a landing on the lowest level of the school and helped me put a dime Then we pulled open a door and she got me a bottle of Coke. That was a revelation. She also showed me how to make a collect call when we needed a ride home. For those of you who are younger, that was back in the days. She showed me how to dial long distance from New Jersey so I could call my grandmother in Tucson. Famously, at least in the late 1960s in my family, on a flight back to New Jersey from San Francisco Molly got up in the aisle and sang I Left My Heart in San Francisco so well that a passenger recorded it. How I'd love to hear that. She asked for and received her own Panasonic portable cassette recorder player when such things were relatively costly and novel. She had a child's guitar, and I can remember sitting on her canopy bed playing and singing songs she had written herself, as well as covering the Beatles and other popular music when she was just 6 or 7. She had her own camera quite young too and was an intrepid explorer. She didn't really seem afraid of anything. She would take me for walks in the wooded areas of suburban New Jersey. They seemed like primordial, primordial forests to me at that age. She loved horses and she had her own comprehensive toy ranch set which we would arrange on her bedroom floor with and played with for hours imagining we were on the ranch. She was so excited to take horseback riding lessons And she was much more proficient at it than I ever was. When we lived in an apartment in East Brunswick, New Jersey, there was a copse of trees, and on the other side was an old farm. The elderly owners encouraged her friendship with their horse, and she would bring it apples or oats and treat it like her best friend.

Mm-hmm.

They also let us play in their old Airstream child trailer they had, and we imagined we were going on road trips to exotic places together. My mother and Molly went off to the local drive-in theater about this time. My little brother Linus and I could see the screen in the distance from our apartment windows. There was a blackout in our complex, but the theater screen was still projecting Jesus Christ Superstar, so we watched the silent movie waiting for the lights to come back on. When they returned, my mother was laughing nonstop.

I said, what's so funny?

She said, Molly looked around the theater lot and asked, Mommy, why are there no people in the other cars? Of course, neither of us understood that as funny yet. Molly was no angel, as everyone must know. By about age 11, she began to tire of playing with her siblings and started to hang out with boys who seemed to me to be latter-day James Deans. One boy offered her a cigarette, which started a habit of many years. He also got her interested in exploring fire. My mother had to explain to her why playing with lit matches on the balcony was inappropriate and worried the neighbors. She was, as I said, an explorer and an experimenter. She would try new things, and sometimes seemingly indiscriminately. Sometimes she was unkind to me or cleverly cajoled me out of things that I wanted. She could have been a very persuasive salesperson. She excelled academically. When she applied herself. Seemingly, she had a steel trap-like ability to retain and recall information accurately at her young age. She was in the chorus at Livingston High School and was given a solo during their holiday concert at what seemed like the very glamorous Livingston Mall. I remember the fuss and excitement and my mom circling around the completely full parking lot trying to get a space, finally getting into the cavernous hall Where there was a giant whale tail sculpture in front of which the chorus was assembled, beautifully dressed up, and the crowd seemed mesmerized by the music. Then my sister stood up and sang her solo to a packed house. I felt like she was the diva of the world. Um, when she was about 15 or 16, she began to go regularly to the Rocky Horror Picture Show dressed up as the character Magenta. To enjoy participating in the live audience cast. Throughout her life, she was creative, loved to dress up and perform, and of course she did various arts and crafts. A number of these necklaces and bracelets are things that she created. She made jewelry for years, and I just found out we have another jewelry maker in the crowd, so I'm thrilled that we have a place to donate some of those things to. As many of you know, my— probably know the stories, My brilliant and charming outgoing father had been drafted into the Korean War. When I was a child, I was told he'd been shell-shocked. He forbade us from playing with toy guns or toy soldiers, would not allow us to watch violent movies, and he was jumpy. As my brother says, you don't sneak up on a hoeschlag. Of course, much later we learned what PTSD is. My father's physical and mental health was clearly deteriorating. Nothing my mother As you can suggest, no visits to experts seemed to be able to help, nor of much interest to him. Much later, we learned he had a brain tumor as well. Molly was very close to my father, and she began to unwind as he became more ill and more unhinged. My mother had to separate from him for our safety and well-being. My sister became more and more angry and rebellious and ran away when she was 16. Now recall in the 1970s that a 16-year-old woman would by most be— have been considered to be an adult and not a teenager. Had run out. This girl had suffered trauma at home and to escape. Turns out Molly took a job at the kitchen of the then new and swanky Playboy Vernon Valley Resort, which included housing. Many years later, she related to me That it was difficult for her there. I hope this narrative is something that you're following because it is a little long, but I think it's— Got her talents and what she did with her challenges. My mother and my sister were able to make a plan with my grandmother such that Molly could go and live with her in Tucson and go to her last year of high school here in Tucson and then go off to the U of A. at the affordable in-state tuition rate. Molly loved the desert. She seemed happiest when she was visiting Tucson, so this appealed. Molly had been increasingly unkind to me, alternating with some good moments. I had mixed feelings about her leaving but understood she needed to do what worked for her. Sadly, not so long thereafter, my grandmother passed away in 1980 when Molly was just 17 and just shy of graduating high school. Molly stayed in residence in my grandmother's house, but relatively quickly it became clear Molly was not able to keep up with that house. That probably would have been the case in any case, even with the most mature 17-year-old charged with such responsibilities. Molly was much more interested in exploring the world and being creative than domestic. So she moved to an apartment, and my grandmother's now somewhat debilitating little dream house Uh, that she had been in since 1952, I think, was sold. Molly had stopped going to high school but eventually went on to get her GED and went to college. She loved travel to Mexico. She was quite fluent in Spanish, and she taught ESL classes in Tucson.

Hmm.

When she was in her early 20s, she became quite ill with what she then thought was Epstein-Barr virus or chronic fatigue syndrome. It seemed various doctors brushed off her illness as being all in her head, which I witnessed them doing. And I asked, well, why doesn't that require treatment, even if that might be the case? Other times they just gave her prescriptions to quiet her down, but it was clear to me her complexion was off and she had physical and mental suffering. She began to research and wrote and circulated a letter for sufferers of chronic fatigue fatigue syndrome for quite some time. She continued creating music, and after her Molly Who album came out in 1989— by the way, that was named because whenever someone said Molly Hooslag, people would go, Molly Who? Um, she— that was what you heard a little earlier. She then was in a group called the Courage Sisters, whose one of their flyers is here. There's multiple copies for those of you who might have been fans of them. It was so named because each of them had various challenges and it took them courage to get up and perform. They performed live around Tucson, and she relayed to me that she had received a Best New Artist Award in Tucson after she was performing for 20 years. So that's about how long it takes to be a new artist, I guess. If anyone happened to have any recordings of any of her other songs besides Love's Eternal Valenborg, The Molly Who album, let me know. We are trying to collect those things together. She did not put those things out on a CD or tape for the most part, she just performed live. We're gonna hopefully make an accessible archive for her. So at some point Molly became more or less confined to a hospital bed. Linus, who had been interested in personal computers for some time, brought her over a circa 1989 Commodore 128 and dial-up modem.

Wow.

And she found that she could learn things by using these from her bedside. And she discovered the New School was offering online courses. This was quite, quite brand new, cutting edge at that time. And she took up her studies there and got her degree there. She quickly began to realize how the World Wide Web Could be a lifeline more than a place to exchange recipes, and how especially important it could be for people who have difficulties going out physically and engaging the world.

Mm-hmm.

So things began to come together for her regarding accessibility on the web, and thus began her illustrious career, something I don't think anyone in my family could quite grasp the vast import of just, just yet. I do recall my mother boasting that she was, quote, the first Jewish mom in cyberspace after my sister hooked her up by, you know, teaching her about electronic mail and the information superhighway. Um, and, uh, I still quite couldn't figure out what it was for, but she got me going there too. I recall sometime in the 1990s being at a big chain bookstore store with my best friend Rue. Rue worked in IT and she was another early computer aficionado. She dragged me over to a computer section and there on one shelf there was an entire span of books my sister had authored or co-authored. She had sent me a copy of one or two books and I tried to read what she was saying about HTML and it was mostly like way beyond my comprehension, but I could grasp She was really deep into how this stuff worked. But only when I saw how many books there were did I understand, oh, my sister is important, like, in the big world, not just in the family world. Like, whoa.

Yeah.

So she was very modest, at least towards me and my family, about how much of this work she had done. I was really just blown away. And I began to understand just who she was As an individual in the larger world rather than as a family member, and eventually why she would come to be known as the Fairy Godmother of the Web. It still amazes me that if you type that into any search engine, she shows right up. I don't know how many people have a nickname that if you type it in, there they are, like That's quite an acknowledgment of who she was, that she's that well known in that way. I imagine that many of us know something about her professional narrative moving forward from this point. She shared extensively and openly in person and on social media about intimate, personal, and professional matters. Thankfully, a lot of her lectures have been recorded and are accessible. Looking at these, I recall what I loved about my sister: her wit, her humor, her energy, and her passion for her career. She really wanted to bring people together and allow the free and open, readily accessible sharing of information. Thank you. I think some of these videos of her giving TED Talks are introductions at conferences really capture her at her best, and you can actually see the reactions of the audience and the other people around her who held her in such esteem and who explored and learned with her. I love that the word scholar is both the teacher and the student, and she was ever engaged in that dance. And I'm so thankful to people who recorded things and made them available for us to revisit. In her personal life, she had been friends for nearly 30 years with Ray Poor, Raymond, before they married, and she shared with me that the times they had together were the happiest days of her adult life. She felt unconditionally loved and supported. He was devoted to her, and he had some magic touch that I don't know anyone else had, because when Molly was on, she was on, but when she was off, you could not steer her back into any state of tranquility or calm or functionality. But he could. He just had that wonderful connection to her. I will note that my mother had always been there trying to support my sister, freely sharing her resources and responding to Molly's often dramatic or urgent Ray's untimely passing in February of 2017 and our mom's passing in October of that same year really made things all the more difficult for Molly. From that time forward, I did my best to offer support and resources, and as I noted, when Molly was upset, there was so little one could do to console her, though I did my best, often to the point of exhaustion and beyond. I just would sometimes sit there and let her talk. But Molly hit upon this interesting idea of regular watch parties because we were so far apart, where we could choose movies or shows that we would all enjoy and then watch together wherever we were. That was brilliant because it really helped us stay connected in an enjoyable way with very low stress. And some of you well know that low stress was not her usual operating mode. So we would text comments back and forth about the plots, the sets, the costumes, or anything we found interesting about these shows. Um, sometimes things seemed fresh, and other times bemoaning how dated things were. Always entertaining.

We would—

her favorites included Scrubs, which had both medical and musical components. And it's hard to think about that show now because of recent commercials with original actors singing and just Bring me back to all that. So many hours spent watching those shows. Still, on Sunday nights, I feel like something's missing or I've forgotten something every time it's time for us to watch a party. I know that members of the family, Molly's friends, assistants, and colleagues often were very generous and understanding. They did what they could despite it often being very difficult. For all their love and kindness, For your efforts and grace, I wish to publicly acknowledge everyone here and watching us who did any of the wonderful many, many things I know of for my sister, and I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your love and care of my big sister. During my regular visits to Tucson, she was sometimes having a very rough day, and other times there were moments where the fun-loving voice. The sassy big sister I knew was at her core and fully present. During our last visit to Tucson, my partner Ronnie and I came to her apartment with pizza one day, and we all watched the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory together with a cat, Honey. And Molly made pithy and sage observations all the way through about the various characters, and we laughed, and she enjoyed that pizza very much. This is the way I want to remember her, fully engaged, contributing observations, and enjoying good food with company. I will do want to mention one last thing. Song lyrics were a really strong component of my sister's life, and she wrote many songs and poems to record and share in her memories and emotions. I only tend to remember bits of lyrics here and there from a variety of songs, Now, those of you who like music may know who Aikenstock Waterman were, and they wrote an unfortunately long-forgotten song in 1989 that resurfaced in my memory and stays an earworm now. It's called Breakaway, and it's a heartfelt song.

Both—

the best-known version is a post-disco version by Donna Summer. It contains these lyrics: Forget about the bad times, remember all the good times. I don't find it easy at all to forget the bad times, but I think it's excellent advice to remember all the good times, and I will celebrate and cherish them. Let her name be remembered for a blessing, for all the best things that she strove for. Thank you all for being here today. At this point, we'll ask, uh, for those that were family members first, um, and then her friends and colleagues Who would like to stand up and share a few memories about her, share them. We have a few messages that have come in from friends and relations as well that will be read.

Just first of those.

Yeah, um, could someone, uh, invite someone to step forward if they have anything they want to say?

Anybody like to share some memories of Molly?

I have memories. Oh, if family wants to step forward, uh, jump on up. It's not— oh, are you— there isn't saying go run ahead if you want to go ahead.

Well, I, I too wrote Molly down because I wasn't very confident that I could start. So should I get over here?

If you go over there so you're on the screen, that'd be great.

Thank you.

So, so yeah, I wrote, I wrote down what I needed to say also because I figured if I just started talking about Molly, I'd never stop. So, um, and then when I told my husband— he's back in Austin— that I was gonna come and Talk about Molly, he said, be sure to tell everyone that Molly is among the very few gifted intellectuals whose analytical powers are intimately tethered to an essentially moral worldview. Now, my husband had nothing to do with technology, but he and Molly could sit for hours and hours and hours. He's an artist and a musician. And I thought, okay, Ron, I will say this in front of everyone, but it's— gives you an idea of how the analytical powers are intimately tethered to an essentially moral worldview. And I think that is so true of Molly. For those of you I didn't meet earlier, I'm Sharon Rush, and Molly was my colleague at Knowbility, which is a nonprofit advocacy organization that we collaborated with. But, you know, it's kind of funny to say How do I remember Molly? Because I felt like I knew her for years before I actually met her in 2002 because of those those books, Morris. That whole shelf of books and the way that she wrote about about technology from this egalitarian and small d democratic way, a way that included everyone. Now my field was disability inclusion, but Molly's field was worldwide inclusion. Everybody had to have a voice. And, you know, I just, I think that she was one of the earliest people to really see and articulate clearly the potential of the web to make the world better. She inspired millions of us in that way. She communicated those complex technical questions clearly and from a humanitarian Centered perspective that invited all of us in, that invited us to join her in imagining and then realizing that potential. Morris, your memories of her as a child just made clear to me so much about those qualities of her as an adult. Thank you for— I mean, it was so beautiful. And when I met Molly, the very, very human Molly, um, It was because we were invited by the California state government to bring our conference to San Francisco. It was 2002. And because of that humanitarianism that she displayed, I thought, well, I'm just going to invite her to be the keynote.

And she said yes.

And that began one of, I think, one of the most important friendships in my life.

Mmm.

And I know I'm not alone in feeling that way because Molly, when you were with her, she made you feel like you were the most important person in the world. And I, I think she was incredibly able to forge those human bonds. And through the years, I learned so much from my friend. Of course, about the emerging and ever-changing web, but beyond that, about our human capacity and responsibility to one another as human beings, to realize our potential as humans for equity and planetary health and justice and joy. She was an impassioned advocate, fierce at times, of course, fierce, but always brilliant, insightful, and truly, truly creative. I felt like that word is too often used You know, in our current world, to sell stuff.

Let's be creative and sell stuff.

But Molly embodied a fearless ability to see through the nonsense and to speak truth to power, and also friends and family, right?

Mm-hmm.

I, I can't count the number of times that a lively and seemingly lighthearted conversation suddenly went down deep, and I was confronted with a new perspective. Her insights and her imagination challenged my assumption, and I had to reconsider. Which is not to say that Molly was always right, but she made you work for your position, and she made you think about it. And she remained unafraid to stand against the tide. That fearlessness that you described, Morris, she, she kept that her entire life. She just seemed like she could stand against the tide of conventional thought, against received wisdom, even as it was being made to shape her beloved web. I think Molly resisted the monetization of human ingenuity. She insisted on the sacred right of human dignity. She envisioned a world of equity and justice, regardless of all the categories that In order for them to gain and hold. And she worked hard all of her life to ensure that all people had an equal opportunity to thrive. I don't think I've ever been forever grateful that I did, because Molly Holschlag took things personally. She had personal responsibility to use her powers to the fullest. Her powers were formidable as a true intellectual writer, speaker, mentor, teacher, advocate, and yes, even a spiritual advisor, especially if your spiritual center was Dionysus. I think, you know, she was full of Spirit, and, and she was so brave. That Courage Sisters— I love that she was part of the Courage Sisters. And I think even as illness tried to claim her spirit, Molly fought on. In 2022, when Nobility brought AccessU out of lockdown, Molly agreed to travel to Austin to give the opening keynote. She brought us out of lockdown, and she did it with her unflagging passionate wit and insight. Defiant and visionary as ever, despite years of debilitating illness, she gave us hope. She made us laugh. She expressed her outrage at the overwhelming monetization of the web, and she told us what we could do about it. She helped us believe that she'd be with us forever. Now that she's gone, it remains for us, doesn't it, to take it Personally, it remains to us to carry the torch in her name and our own, and to forge that life-affirming future for all humans in this world. So, dear Molly, I hope you rest well. You earned it. We miss you so much, and we will always, always remember you with love and gratitude. Thank you for letting me be here.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. This is from my best friend, Ruette Madris Watson, who I've known since I was in college. She could not come out here from New Jersey at this point. But she asked me to read this. Reflections on Molly. Morris is my brother from another mother. I considered Molly to be family, and I've always been in awe of her and all her accomplishments— writer, musician, songwriter. She was someone who had a vision and understood how to bring it into reality. She produced her musical albums, her own work. When she was disabled for a time in her youth, When the quote-unquote internet was something many of us could barely grasp conceptually, Molly encountered it. And in the early days of just being able to dial up, she completely understood what was happening and the future and what was at stake. She was able to pave the way for others who needed assistance in accessing the World Wide Web with her insistent fight for inclusion for everyone. She was known as the very godmother of the web. Wrote dozens of books on programming accessibility. She's the one who brought me to the bookstore, by the way, who's writing this. She was a true pioneer and forged a career in educating people, similarly to her mother, Dr. Phyllis Kafka, who was a renowned professor, long active in advocating for women's rights and multicultural studies. They both stood for creating a better world to better everyone's experience. experience and level the playing field, be it with HTML or telling the truth. We are all the same. We all have an innate brilliance that can shine, and we all deserve a fair chance to live our best lives. Molly uncovered what was behind the veil and wanted everyone to gain access to what was under that. She was very successful. I know that Molly— Mars and Linus loved her deeply and always did their very best to show her. In deeds and words, I'm sorry I cannot be with you today, but know my heart is with you as you are my family. Amali's passing is a deep loss. May she revamp the universe she now inhabits in spirit and bring accessibility to us all from her higher perspective. If this is a simulation, as some purport, then Amali will surely find a way to reshape a better one for us all.

Ruwafa.

Would anybody else like to read some stuff?

So some of you, not all of you, uh, Aaron's I'm going to have a hard time keeping it together, so I'm going to have to read. So I know Molly from the web. She was there when I gave my first talk in 2003. And I was more choked up than I am now because I was so nervous. I was literally choking on my words. It was at Convex. And I'd been invited out by the World Organization of Webmasters to give a talk on XHTML. The talk was solid. My delivery was atrocious. So I was like, But Molly was quick to come up afterwards and to congratulate me, and I was floored. I told her how excited I was to see her and Eric Meyer give a talk on CSS later in the day, and she told me that Eric had to cancel his trip last minute and asked if I would be interested in giving the talk with her.

Hmm.

Just like that.

Wow.

I don't know that she had any idea who I was. I'd only just published published my first piece, Philosopher's Departure, a few months earlier. But that was how Molly rolled.

Mm-hmm.

She saw my passion for web standards and somehow knew I'd be able to step up. That one welcoming gesture was huge for me, and it was the start of a long, a long collaboration and friendship. After that talk, we met up again in Vegas in 2004 and then went on a speaking tour of the US in 2005, running web standards workshops where we taught people the fundamentals of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and accessibility of course. And I learned so much from her during that time and bore witness over and over to her immense capacity for welcoming people, for bringing them together, breaking bread, building her tribe. She was the very embodiment of the word hospitable.

Mm-hmm.

And hilarious. Her boisterous laugh was infectious. And memorable. I can still hear it echoing in my ears. I don't know that I've ever met someone who gave as much of herself as Molly did. She always, always put others first, sometimes to her own detriment. When I first met Molly, she was leading the Web Standards Project, and she poured her heart and soul into that organization and the cause of web standards. I lost count of how many events she spoke at, often on her own dime. She invited educators into her home to teach them how to properly teach the next generation of web designers and developers for free. She always put her advocacy for the cause first, a double-edged sword we've since named advocacy fatigue. It took a toll on her mentally, physically, and spiritually, and she took the occasional break from it, but she never gave up on the fight for a more egalitarian web. Another aspect of Molly's giving nature was her insistence on opening the door for other people career-wise. I witnessed her pass along amazing opportunities that found their way into her inbox with an incredible amount of joy, like doling out incredible gifts for a holiday. One such gift she handed me was the opportunity to do some work with Adaptive Path. Through her introduction, that got me a chance to work with some amazing team on several projects, all from my living room thousands of miles away from their San Francisco Francisco offices. That was the kind of sway she pulled. That work led to a part-time role in health insurance at a company called Bold Peters, where I worked on another project, and that gave me the freedom to quit my day job at an ad agency and then build my own consulting business, which I launched a few months later and ran for over a decade, all because of the doors that Molly opened. In a separate path, she invited me to join Wasp, where I worked on JavaScript-focused efforts. And that led to me working with Microsoft on improvements to IE7 and then IE8, and then years later to me eventually joining Microsoft as a web standards evangelist, all because of the doors Molly opened. And I was not alone. Wherever and whenever Molly saw an opportunity to help someone on their career journey, she would help them. Book contracts, speaking engagements, networking, freelance work— if Molly saw any way she could help you No ego, no expectations, selfless. Her example is what inspired me to build my own mentoring program. I don't know that I can ever do as much good as she did for people, but she made me want to try. If you know Molly's name, as you all do of course, this is probably why. She was a staunch and loud advocate for web standards and accessibility, a veteran of the browser wars and subsequent skirmishes. She knew the landscape and knew how imperative it was for standards to emerge and for browsers to implement them consistently. I wasn't there for the meeting, but she told me Bill Gates tried to tell her the web was done, round about the IE6 days, and she yelled at him. While she wasn't one to shy away from the occasional embellishment, she was just as unlikely to shy away from a confrontation over the viability and future of the web.

So it would not surprise me at all to hear that she yelled at him.

Molly was a lioness. Nurturing and maternal to the web and its denizens, and a fierce protector when they were threatened. She saw the potential of the web as a great equalizer and bristled when folks tried to wall it off or exclude people, especially disempowered people, from accessing it. That passionate support for the open web never wavered, even when Molly became ill. In fact, we've been talking about whether it might make sense to relaunch Wasp just before she died. Decade after we shuttered it because we thought the work was done, and it wasn't. Knowing Molly affected me deeply. Her kindness, thoughtfulness, generosity, and passion live on in everyone her life touched, including me. I don't know what to make of the world without Molly, but I hate that we're living in it. She was truly a force of nature, and as such has left an indelible mark on our industry. Thank you. Industry and our world. I'm so thankful to have known her, to have received her mentorship, and to have called her a friend. And in many ways, she was the big sister I never had, being an only child myself. I want to share a brief passage from one of her posts that really stuck with me in reflecting on her death and the birthday she would have had. Mortality reminds us in very cold, frightening terms how fragile our life and times truly are. The web, which is a naturally social and interactive communications platform, can help bring us all closer. The fighting, the drama— and we all know Molly loved drama— the debates, they all become irrelevant in these very mortal moments. Let us all reach for the greatness within ourselves and put it into our web work every day, because even on those days we feel it's overwhelming, Or it doesn't matter. It really truly does. One world, one web, one love, my brothers and sisters.

One last message sent in from immediate family. This is from my cousin Philip S. Bell. I remember Molly. as a very sweet, heartfelt person. Even though she struggled with physical issues, she always put her best side forward with me. She is so missed. We also have greetings from Adele Cooper-Flinker, who is another cousin who can't be here, is watching on the live stream. So I say hello to you and everyone else. Uh, just saying, Molly, you're being missed. Setting her conference.

Uh, hi everyone. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Farouk. Molly was pretty instrumental to kind of the start of my career in the web. I was just a little blogger, kid with a blog and passion for web standards and accessibility. And mostly I was kind of friends with the similarly, like, level celebrities of web standards blogging, which is already, you know, far below normal celebrity level, but for our field that was pretty cool. And Molly was definitely A-list. But there was a time that I wrote one piece, The Case for XHTML, and I was very proud of it. And I wrote it and I published it and all my friends were like, oh yeah, this is a good piece. And one day I wake up and I noticed that Molly wrote a blog post linking to my piece, and I was just like, oh my gosh, senpai noticed me! But that made me realize that Molly had actually been paying attention to my work and my blog for a little while, and so we started becoming friends, we started chatting. And as many here know, the fairy godmother of the web. She was a mentor to everyone, anyone that she saw was doing something with passion in their heart. And Hayao Miyazaki says that true love is when 2 people inspire each other.

Hmm.

And I think that was something that Molly really took to heart in a way that you could see in her actions. If she inspired you, then she would be inspired by you, and she would want to see the best in you. And so after, I think, maybe 6 months to a year somewhere, I got more involved in the field. And there was a web conference in London coming up, and I was in the Netherlands, and that was gonna be my chance to meet a bunch of my heroes, including Molly. And so I made sure to go there, and before the first session, I tried to find her and I couldn't.

But then during that opening keynote, I saw how she was sitting right there at the front. And so at the first break, I was trying to rush over to say hi to her, but the people were just moving so slowly.

But she saw me and I saw her, and so I just climbed over 8 rows of empty seats. It's like, all right, I'm gonna go give you a hug. And she loved that so much, she would tell that story every time back to me whenever we were catching up after a couple of years of not She also encouraged me to be on my first panel at the first South by Southwest that I went to. It was a panel on web standards and accessibility, and that was my first speaking engagement, being on the panel. And she was the moderator there and made sure that I got to have my voice added to the conversation. She took me in as someone that she just wanted to steer and guide and mentor whenever I needed it, but mostly I feel like we inspired each other. Me with my innocence and naivete about how stuff should work, and her seeing someone who is equally passionate about saying fuck you to the system. Apologies for the language.

Said someone, but I don't think anyone's gonna be surprised with that.

She invited me to the Web Standards Project and also encouraged me to start giving my own talks, which I eventually did, and that continued the path of being inspired by Molly and being mentored. But eventually my years of speaking kind of simmered down and And mostly we stayed in touch over Facebook, not that it was very highly active and interactive between us, but anytime that I talked about a topic of morality or philosophy, there was a good chance that Molly would weigh in with her point of view, or even just to say thank you for sharing this perspective.

When it came to accessibility, she was always there.

And the very last time that I chatted with Molly was about 2 weeks before she passed. We did a catch-up call and we hadn't spoken in a while. We ended up, of course, chatting for well over an hour, just continuing that love for humanity, continuing our passion for making the world a better place, continuing to inspire each other. And I'll always carry that with me, you know, true love, being inspired by each other to live, not just to be alive, but to do something with your life of meaning and something that you would be proud of and something that she would be proud of. I'm gonna miss her, but I will continue holding her in my heart.

Thank you.

Denise.

So, um, my name is Denise Jacobs, and, um, basically I'm going to echo a lot of the things that people have already said, but I think that it bears being heard again and again.

And I also think Hello!

That what Sharon said at the beginning, this kind of taking what she stood for and how she was in the world, and instead of having it stop with her, taking it forward. We've been hearing a lot of things in the world about, like, disparities and inequities and things And one of the things I was thinking as I was listening to everybody talking was that if representation matters was a person, Molly would probably be that person.

Yeah.

At least, at the very least, in my life. It sounds like it was for Aaron, it sounds like it was for Farouk, it sounded like it was for a lot of people. I met Molly Because I was teaching web design and web development at a community college in Seattle, Washington. And I had been following a lot of web people, and I came across her, and I was like, a woman talking about web stuff, this is amazing! You know, back in the days when blogs had blogrolls, and you have— they have a list of all the other people that you follow.

So I started following all these people.

This is what I was learning from to be able to teach.

My students used one of her books as one of my classes' textbooks, and then when I saw that she was coming to Portland, Oregon, just a 2-hour drive away, to speak at WebVisions in 2012, I was like, I can't wait to go.

I'm going.

I'm going to this conference. I want to meet her eventually.

And I got there, and I went to her session. And it literally changed my life because I saw her on the stage and I said, oh my God, she's doing exactly what— like, I didn't— you could do that? I was teaching a class, I was teaching classes, I'd have 24 students, I have to grade papers.

I hated it.

I loved having an audience, obviously, but I hated the administrivia thing.

I saw her get up, room of 250 She's making the same jokes that I make.

She was talking about the same things.

We have the same sense of humor.

I was like, wait, what? I could do— I could do— I saw myself, a smaller, Jewish, paler version of myself. I saw myself on the stage when she was talking.

I thought, oh my God, I can do that.

At the dinner afterwards, I ended up sitting next to her and chatting with her and everything.

And I was just like, oh my God, this is great.

I love your stuff.

And she was like, oh, it's wonderful.

And then I was like, you know, I really, I'd really love to speak.

She's like, you totally should.

And I was like, oh. And then I said, you know, I'm going to be leaving Seattle, moving across the country, driving across the country. Maybe I can pop in and see you in Tucson. She was like, great, do it. And I was like, okay. And I was like thinking, you know how people say things. You know how people say things.

Yeah, give me a—

send me an email.

And I was like, okay. And then she reached out and she touched my arm and she said, no, I think you're really cool and I want to hang out.

And I was like, really?

I sent her an email. I said, I'm going to be coming through. Maybe we can have lunch or dinner. And she was like, Stay for the weekend and we can have a proper visit. Y'all, yeah, if generosity was a person, if big-heartedness was a person, if open arms and welcoming somebody into the fold was a person, it was Molly. I got to her house. I'll finish this up. I got to her house. We sat there drinking wine. She says, you need to come to South by Southwest. And I was like, What?

She was right.

And she was like, come to South by Southwest, I'll introduce you to all of my friends. And I was like, okay, thinking, she's already set the precedent though, we know she does what she says. You guys, I almost didn't go. I almost didn't go. I decided a week beforehand, got on the airplane with the flu, fast decision I ever made. She introduced me to people like Aaron, Jeffrey Zaldman, and Stephanie Sullivan, and people whose influence literally directly changed the trajectory of my life. I will never, ever, ever forget how generous and how kind and how welcoming and how loving and how much she opened her arms to me at a time when I really needed it. And how she literally changed my life into something that I literally sometimes picture this opening and say, I can't believe that I, I was able to have this.

So I could go on and on and on, so many stories, but I just, I hold her with so such high regard and such love and such a Appreciation in my heart.

And the one thing I will say is, what can we do moving forward in our own lives to kind of carry that spirit and to be loving, to be a mentor, to help somebody else, to give them that love when they need it, and keep her memory going?

Thank you.

I don't have anything written out.

I'll try and keep this short. I, um, yeah, Molly and I grew up together. I want to say that because we met, I think, originally in '97 or something, and we were both newbies and we were the only women on the web. And I had 30 years of knowing her off and on. You know those friends when you meet up with them every once in a while and it's just like you saw them yesterday? So we've traveled to multiple continents together. I was there when she yelled at Bill Gates.

Twice.

Twice. Twice. Um, she, uh, embraced me in her life Like a sibling, like a sister, and she was always there for me. Now, while we were professionally intertwined, she helped me so much in my personal life. And even today, I reach for my phone to text her a message. In a couple times— and sorry, this is so scattered— but a couple times there were moments when a really good friend of ours lost their daughter, and I pulled over to the side of the road when I And the only person I thought to call was Molly, and she was there, and we cried on the phone together.

And Molly was one of the only people that could actually understand what I was going through.

And I hope that she also got a lot of support from me over the years, but I have a feeling it was rather one-sided because Molly had so much to give. Another time, as I was going through a hard time, hard time a couple years ago, um, she was there for me. We shared hours and hours and hours of phone calls, and we had Christmas together even though I said, what are you doing? She said, well, I'm free. So we had a Christmas concert with my girls over Zoom singing, and Molly playing the guitar as best as she could because her fingers hurt so much, picking out those tunes in pain and hearing her I wanted to tape it, but I didn't.

We just experienced it for what it was.

So at the Access U conference, which I watched streaming— I was going to travel with her, but I got sick in the end and didn't want to. She was immune to compromise, so I didn't want to expose her to that. But that was going to be like the coming out of COVID trip and being able to see her. And when she passed, Aaron came over because, again, you don't know who you can reach out to. And I think this— her life and her passing has impacted me so much because I realized something. I was texting kind of a group of us from the old days, was with Jared Spool and Jeremiah and Jamie Zelman, and I was saying, hey, this just happened. And I was, I was saying she was part of the OG, and I was thinking original gangsters, and Jared said, no, she was the old guard. Oh. And I said, yes, she was the old guard. So a lot of, I think, the impact— I was there with her at the beginning, and I do feel this is a closing of an era. It's the beginning of another era, another era which she will not be here, which I can't even imagine. But like Denise and Sharon, you said, it's our duty now to keep it, pay it forward. And I promise Molly I'm gonna do my best in the years that I have left. Um, but yeah, she's the old guard and we're gonna miss her forever.

Thank you.

Have anyone else wants to share anything? Don't be bashful. This is the time, everyone.

Only once?

Twice your opportunity to speak about Molly, at least in this venue. I want to thank everyone who's come out today, everyone who's helped near and far, those who aren't here who spread the word, who've helped get me materials, who've just been there to lend an ear or shoulder. Uh, I do have a A few logistical notes. All of the things you see spread on these concrete tables, as well as the ornaments on this— ornaments and jewels and so forth on this large table, and including the unframed photos, are things that need a home. And I invite you to take as many as you or your loved ones will enjoy. I prefer For people not to be bashful, because ultimately much of this will just go to, uh, the best charity cause we can find that will accept these items. And these were things that Molly loved, touched, created, or represents her in some way. And so please do look them over and spread them into the world. A little bit of Molly's magic is on these items.

Mm-hmm.

The artwork that is here is also artwork that is from her estate. Her physical legacy is largely here with us now in terms of her— not her physical self, but the items that she physically left in space that had any meaning. So please do look these things over. We are very grateful that Peter and Pete have brought a large art with them. With them to enable us to do this here. I want to note that, uh, our reservations for, uh, the repast are for 2:30 at Lo Calle, and they were for 12 people because that was the number of people who had confirmed as of last week. So I'm going to ask those of you who might want to come that haven't been in touch with me as of last week to please see the hostess We called them yesterday as soon as we knew we were over that number to ask them to accommodate. We haven't heard back, and I'll just ask you to try. We'll make it work somehow.

We'll do that charm thing. We'll do that thing with our hands.

I think that comes naturally to you, the readings. So I just, you know, I'll be with— I also noticed, um, the repast is going to be, um, my treat. But I ask that you arrange for any alcohol beverages that you are going to buy separately. I cannot afford that. And, uh, we will raise a toast to Molly there. Uh, let's see, any other, uh, things that I might have forgotten?

Um, yeah, just to Don't be bashful about taking things.

These are all things that came from Molly.

They have the imprint of Molly's aesthetic vision, and they're wonderful ways to remember her by.

And we don't want people to go away without something, so please do take.

Yeah.

If you're the jewelry maker, there's more.

Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna come. I'll come by and I'll see the making supplies. I made these earrings.

They're beautiful.

I'm just delighted. I didn't know that part of you. If you want to share that, so these things. I can't think of a better. Rest assured, the family has already. We have a bond.

I'm not the best about these things.

So, so, um, the more, the more it goes into the hands of her friends and colleagues and family, loved ones, the happier I will be. With that, I conclude the formal part of our celebration of Molly Hoshide's life with gratitude and thanks for everyone who's participated near and far. And I thank you viewing from afar and those of you who may view us I'm recording later, and I want to give a shout out to Aaron for all the technical help with live streaming and recording this. And again, to Peter for their help with the framed artwork, and to Marshall and Tricia for all the help with jewelry, and everyone else— my brother and his lovely wife, and my partner Ronnie, and Sarah, of course— for making this come together. It takes a village, as Sarah said this morning.

Thank you.

Does everybody know how to get to Los Palos? Yes, I'm sorry.

It's as nice as it gets.

You know, where is it?

What is it?

There's water for hot dogs.

Oh yeah, yeah, sure.

I like matching stuff, so.