If you know Mike McGarry, you love Mike McGarry. You might know Mike as a wonderful high school teacher, both at Magoosh and in the classrooms of The Athenian, Archbishop Riordan, Lick Wilmerding, Impact Academy, St. Ann’s, and others. You might know Mike through Cafh, or his Heart of Light meditation sangha, or his recorded Dharma talks. However you know Mike, you know his deep intelligence, kind open heart, wicked humor, and wonderful laugh!

Mike shares so many gifts with us. Many of us don’t know that Mike has two degrees from Harvard, because two of Mike's gifts are his great humility and practice of leading with his heart. Many of us have felt Mike gently point out our own gifts when we're struggling with self doubt. As his friend James says, with Mike “our inner critic suffers a debilitating blow.”

We now have a precious opportunity to help Mike. Mike was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. This progressive disease affects motor neurons in muscles throughout the body. It first leads to muscle weakness and can eventually lead to difficulty speaking, swallowing, breathing, and paralysis.

Since Mike’s diagnosis, he’s lost 95% of the use of one hand, and about 50% of the other. Mike needs support to keep his head and shoulders upright, and his balance has become slightly unsteady. Currently Mike lives in an Assisted Living facility in California, and receives help as needed eating, showering, and dressing. As Mike's disease progresses, he may also need a ventilator to breathe and a wheelchair. Due to state health care plan limitations, and to be closer to his family, Mike will be moving to an Assisted Living facility in New Jersey in March.

By contributing to this GoFundMe, we can help Mike pay his significant costs for the next two years. After two years, Mike will become eligible for Medicaid that ideally will cover most of his care, although doctors can’t predict how quickly his disease will progress. Our contributions can make all the difference in how Mike continues to live and share his many wonderful gifts.

Your generous contributions will go towards Mike’s:

Mike is living with ALS with profound courage and grace, which speaks to his 35-year meditation practice. In fact, despite his diagnosis, Mike recently began co-teaching a Humanitas class at The Athenian and a Catechism class at St. Isidore Church. In asking for your contribution, I’d like to quote Mike’s friend Chuck:

"Mike is one of those special people we’re sometimes fortunate enough to meet in life who helps us to see the world in a different way—a way that brings us deep peace and understanding. Think for a moment, 'What would my life be like if Mike hadn’t been in it? Where would I still be stuck?' Think about the stories, quotes, and wisdom he shared with you, his contagious laughter, his caring for you. And know that you have been blessed."

Robert, another friend of Mike’s, responds to this:

“I would know next to nothing about New York, New Jersey, and the 'mystical east'...I would know far less about James Joyce, Wallace Stevens, the cosmos, and the Mets…Brother Michael is compassionate and wise, a teacher who opens possibilities to those he comes in contact with, and as some would say is 'an Old Soul.'"

Please contribute to Mike’s GoFundMe. Also, please share this far and wide to everyone you know, even those who may not have had the incredible fortune to know Mike.

Please note the beneficiary Maureen Zuppichini is Mike's sister who will be managing Mike's financial care.