You may not be familiar with Eric Meyer or his daughter but you have almost definitely encountered his code. The MeyerWeb Reset is one of the most widely utilized CSS resets on the web. Our community of web developers has found the perfect way to honor him and show support during an extremely trying time.

Eric's life hasn't been particularly easy for the past year. His daughter, Rebecca, was diagnosed with cancer and as a means of expression Eric has been recording everything on his blog. It's been a heart-wrenching rollercoaster reading as she got worse, then better, then worse again. Thinking about it happening to my own daughter tears my heart to shreds so I can't possibly imagine what he's felt.

What's worse, Rebecca passed away just a few weeks ago. Eric has continued to blog about his grief which is just as heart-wrenching. Social media campaigns have been rampant in hopes of supporting Eric in this difficult time, though I think the most impactful will be the initiative which has garnered support from millions of web developers and the largest corporations in the web dev industry - rebeccapurple .

A submission was made to the CSS Working Group via social media recently to add a new color to the list of CSS named colors. The idea was, in honor of Rebecca, we would rename her favorite color - #663399 - to show support for Eric and his family. The new name recommended was beccapurple .

To make sure this wouldn't cause more pain or distress for Eric's family, the CSS WG reached out to him. Eric responded with a request that would continue to tug at the heart strings...

A couple of weeks before she died, Rebecca informed us that she was about to be a big girl of six years old, and Becca was a baby name. Once she turned six, she wanted everyone (not just me) to call her Rebecca, not Becca. She made it to six. For almost twelve hours, she was six. So Rebecca it is and must be.

This past Friday, June 19th, 2014, the community to which Eric has given so very much has seen fit to name #663399 as rebeccapurple with his permission. I went back through his blog to find the post where it all started. It was extremely difficult to read again even the first few lines of the posts related to Rebecca's tumor. Still, I thought it necessary to find for those interested in the whole story.

Though I grieve for Eric, I am honored to be a part of this amazing community and I wish I could have done more to contribute my support. He has made such an amazing impact on our community that we really do owe him our gratitude and support. I hope he's able to make it through this with or without our help. Good luck, Eric. We're all here for you.