In 1989 I was visiting SoftQuad in Toronto, and was sent to a conference in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. I no longer remember why I went. It was SGML ’89.

I remember meeting one person in particular at that conference, someone imposing yet genial. I continued to know him through his SGML work.

In 2001 I was invited to come to work at the World Wide Web Consortium. On the day I arrived in Boston I was told the name of my new boss, and I could hardly believe my ears: I was reporting to Michael.

Michael was polite, courteous, knowledgeable. Often he would call me with a computer question, and spend time with me at working group meetings or conferences, just as he did with others.

Several times in the past few days since his death I have caught myself thinking, Oh, I should forward that to Michael. Oh, Michael will enjoy this. Oh, I should ask…

Oh.

Not one of us can know the time of our passing. But there are some people we know of whom we feel that they should be immortal, that they cannot leave us. In some way, they are part of us, and always will be.

There is no end tag for Michael: he lives on, deep in the fabric of computing, and in the hearts of all who knew him.

[I took the photograph here at an XQuery/XSLT/Schema meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA]