In memoriam, Michael Morale: Aug. 8, 1965-June 7, 2025

It is with deep sadness and heavy hearts that we announce the passing of our beloved friend, coworker, and advocate, Michael Morale. Michael died in his home in Irving, Texas, on June 7 at the age of 59.

I first encountered Michael through his personal YouTube channel in 2018. The way he documented his life with SMA caught the attention of both my managers and me. His storytelling was raw, humorous, and uplifting. I had been working for Bionews, the parent company of SMA News Today, for about a year at that point. We were looking for new contributors, and Michael instantly stuck out to us.

From our first conversation, we hit it off, and I admired Michael’s personality and his natural ability to connect with people. We were then able to meet in person several months later at the Cure SMA conference in Dallas. This was the only in-person SMA conference Michael attended, but the experience was transformative for him. Whereas he didn’t know anyone in the community for most of his life, that conference opened his eyes to numerous individuals and families affected by SMA. He expressed gratitude for attending innumerable times in conversations and through the videos he made for our YouTube channel.

Kevin Schaefer and Michael at the 2018 Cure SMA Conference in Dallas. (Courtesy of Kevin Schaefer)

To describe Michael’s impact at Bionews in the span of a few paragraphs would be impossible. He touched so many lives in the seven years he worked here, and he treated his role as much more than a job. Prior to his time with us, he had a decades-long career at Exxon Mobil. He also taught college students on the side.

While these jobs were fulfilling, he struggled when he had to stop working full time to go on disability. This weighed heavily on him, as his work ethic and passion to serve others were defining attributes of his life.

He wasn’t sure if he would be able to work again, but Bionews came at just the right time. His work here gave him a renewed sense of purpose, and he never stopped thanking everyone here for this opportunity, especially our CEO and founder, Chris Comish. In addition to creating videos and podcasts for us, he worked full time in management. He was primarily responsible for overseeing all our multimedia initiatives for several years, and later worked with our partnerships team to build relationships with various nonprofits and organizations.

His passion for his work was only outmatched by his passion for the people here. Michael was not one for small talk or casual friendships. He invested in people wholeheartedly, and he was relentlessly selfless and compassionate. He made it a point to have regular conversations with me and countless other coworkers. These were less about work and more about our lives and how we were doing personally. Even when he had numerous health and personal matters of his own to deal with, he was much more concerned with helping others. Additionally, his jokes and one-liners ranged from ridiculously cheesy to wildly inappropriate. During every business meeting and social hour, he knew how to make everyone laugh.

Michael with his late father, Nick Morale, at a Texas Rangers game. (Courtesy of Michael Morale)

Particularly in the last year of his life, Michael struggled with numerous health issues, many of which he documented in his YouTube videos. Just before he passed, he had spoken with his doctors and understood he did not have much time left.

Determined to make the best of it, he met a couple of times with Al Freedman, PhD, a psychologist who specializes in people affected by rare disease. He had a son with SMA named Jack, who died in 2021 at the age of 26. During their conversations, Michael told Freedman he wanted to document the last stage of his life as much as possible, primarily through podcast conversations. He hoped to encourage others in the community to live as fully as they could and to not be afraid to discuss matters of life and death. Michael was a person of faith, and his beliefs guided him as he faced the end of his life.

While he passed before he could create these podcasts and say good-bye to the community here, his message was clear through every video he created. He wanted others to live as he did, full of gratitude and with compassion for others. While having SMA is not something that I and anyone else in this community signed up for, the beauty of it is that it’s brought us all together. Through our shared disability and our work together, Michael became one of my closest friends and mentors. As a geeky millennial who loves Star Wars, I formed a lifelong bond with a goofy redneck on the other side of the country who loved the Texas Rangers and would eat fried food for every meal if his body and doctors had allowed it.

Michael focused on multiple topics in his videos over the years: physical therapy, SMA treatments, assistive technologies, daily living, and advice for others in the community. Yet he always ended each video with a line that guided him throughout his life: “Do something for yourself this week that’s going to make you a better person.”

Michael with his physical therapist, Emily Jones (Courtesy of Michael Morale)