The morning of April 4 started like any other for the Idaho Falls High School swim team.
Swimmers trickled into the pool for their morning workout, the water still and dark in the early hours.
But one swimmer was not expected to be there at all.
Abigail Balsmeier’s mother, Melinda, had died the previous morning after a year-and-a-half battle with a rare and aggressive form of appendix cancer.
Yet, there was the 16-year-old, standing on the pool deck less than 24 hours later, ready to dive in.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, are you OK?’” said junior Mahealani Grimes, Abigail’s best friend and teammate. “And she was like, ‘Yeah, it’s OK. It was bound to happen eventually.’”
Even her mom and Idaho Falls swim coach Elizabeth Grimes tried to tell Abigail that she didn’t have to be here. But Abigail wasn’t having it.
“I don’t want to waste time just sitting in bed when I could be doing something productive,” Abigail said nonchalantly.
Now, seven months later, the junior is back — really back.
After nearly quitting swimming altogether, after months of isolation and grief, Abigail has returned to the sport that once brought her joy. She heads to the Class 5A Idaho High School State School Swimming Championships that get underway Friday at the Idaho Central Aquatics Center in Boise.
“I didn’t realize how deep in a hole I was until I got out of it,” Abigail said.
A MOTHER’S LOVEMelinda Balsmeier loved schnauzers, tide pools, scuba diving and the ocean.
But above all else, she was about being a mom and helping people.
As a physician’s assistant at Just for Kids Urgent Care in Idaho Falls, she combined both passions daily.
“Everything about her was trying to be a good mom,” said husband Aaron Balsmeier. “She always wanted to make sure we had good memories. She was always thinking about how to do things with the kids so that they’d have good experiences.”
For Abigail, she was much more than just a supporter.
Melinda had a way of making hard days easier. She’d always ask Abigail if she wanted to go to TJ Maxx, turning difficult moments into qualify time spent together.”
“I struggled to have friends in middle school,” Abigail said. “I just remember I’d tell my mom everything. We fought sometimes, like mothers and daughters do, but at the end of the day, I would tell her everything. She really was my best friend.”
Swimming became a cornerstone of the family when Abigail and her older brother Jackson started lessons at 5. What began as basic water safety, turned into something more when both siblings joined the Voltage Aquatics Team.
From the beginning, both parents were all-in. Aaron became a longtime swim official, refereeing meets from the pool deck. Melinda worked the administrative table, tracking times and managing paperwork.
More importantly, she never missed a single meet.
“She was at every single thing that she could be at,” Elizabeth said. “She’s either working it or cheering for it. Literally, I’ve never not seen her at any of their meets.”
As Abigail excelled through middle school — breaking all the pool records in eighth grade, filling every spot on the wall — Melinda was there for each milestone, including, a state championship.
THE HIGHEST HIGH, THE LOWEST LOWMahealani was warming up in the pool at the 2023 Idaho High School Swimming State Championships at the West YMCA on Nov. 4 when she heard it.
“Hips Don’t Lie” by Shakira was blaring through the speakers.
It was Abigail’s walkout song for the 100 butterfly final. Mahealani immediately stopped swimming and hung on the lane line to watch.
She witnessed Abigail win a state title with a time of 1:02.38, more than a second ahead of Gooding’s Donevin Lakey as just a freshman.
Both parents were in attendance too — Aaron officiating from the pool deck, Melinda cheering on from the bleachers.
But what should have been one of the happiest days of Abigail’s life was the same one that would change her world forever.
Melinda had been experiencing severe stomach pains all weekend.
The following Tuesday, Melinda went to the emergency room. The diagnosis was devastating.
Appendix cancer that had already spread throughout her abdominal cavity. One of the rarest and most aggressive forms.
“When we asked our oncologist about the prognosis, he said the median survival rate was 22 months,” Aaron said. “It was a 4% to 9% survival rate at five years.
“Almost nobody survives what she had.”
Melinda underwent major surgery within days. Doctors opened her from sternum to pubic bone — 40 staples — and removed a third of her large intestine, multiple lymph nodes and her entire omentum, the fatty layer covering the organs.
It was all riddled with tumors.
Then came chemotherapy — 23 cycles over a year, each one a 48-hour infusion that left her violently sick.
“It was really aggressive stuff,” Aaron said. “Basically a week would be wiped out, and then she’d have a week to recover, and then she’d start over again. Right when she was about feeling better, she’d start another round.”
Every three months, she’d travel to Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City for exploratory surgery to see if the chemo was working. Doctors hoped to shrink the tumors enough to perform a specialized procedure where they would essentially remove everything below her lungs.
However, the chemo never worked well enough. The tumors wouldn’t shrink.
But it didn’t stop Melinda from watching her only daughter win another state championship last season.
Abigail, whose mind and heart were understandably elsewhere, still showed up and swam the butterfly leg of the winning 200 medley relay team. She also took third in the 200 IM and was a part of the bronze medal 200 freestyle relay team to help the Tigers finish second overall.
“I think it was due to their mom and one of her main lessons that she really instilled in the kids — that quitting wasn’t acceptable,” Aaron said. “When you’ve started something, you finish and you do your best.”
Abigail was also dividing her time with ballet, something her mother had always loved. She performed as the White Rabbit in “Alice in Wonderland.” In fact, the last time Melinda left the house, it was to watch Abigail’s rehearsal, knowing she wasn’t going to make it to opening night.
“I think ballet was really a way that I connected with my mom,” Abigail said. “It’s something she wanted to do as a little kid and didn’t. When she got sick, I kind of decided to focus more on ballet.”
At the end of March, Melinda began hospice care.
On April 2, Abigail painted her mother’s toenails — a reddish purple shade to match her fingernails.
It was the last time that Melinda could really understand what was happening around her.
“I just remember telling her, ‘I love you so much. I think you’re really beautiful,’” Abigail said.
The next morning, she was gone.
Melinda Rae Balsmeier was only 46.
“The thing that stood out about Abby is right after mom died, we’re crying, and she says, ‘Dad, I got to go to school to turn in a test so that I don’t get a bad grade,’” Aaron said.
Abigail didn’t shed any tears at the funeral, either.
She remained stoic as the priest spoke, as family and friends offered her their condolences and as her mom was laid to rest.
But on the inside, she was hurting.
“I think me and my siblings were just kind of in denial a little bit,” Abigail said. “I think I thought I was just doing OK, and I was just sad.”
But Abigail stopped going to practice and seeing her friends, including Mahealani, who she’d known since they were 6 years old. Her dad was at work, Jackson at the Naval Academy and her two younger brothers were just too young to understand what she was going through.
Abigail was alone at the house, consumed by pain and grief. For months, she barely left the house. Mahealani didn’t see her for six months.
“When we were younger, we used to tell each other that we were going to make all these swim meets and go to them together,” Mahealani said. “And then after she stopped swimming, I was just going to these meets alone.”
Abigail was seriously considering quitting swimming for good.
“Over the summer, it hit me hard,” she said.
In August, Abigail went to the pool to pick up her younger brother. She wasn’t planning to swim — just drive him home.
But Mahealani was there, getting ready for a meet in California.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, Abby, I haven’t seen you in like six months,’” Mahealani said. “And I was like, ‘You should come to practice tomorrow and just swim with us.’ And she was like, ‘OK.’”
That one practice changed everything.
The moment she hit the water for that first warmup, something shifted. A calmness she hadn’t felt in months washed over her. This was where she was supposed to be, where she could finally start to heal.
She started swimming full-time again and never looked back.
“The pool is that one place where everybody knew my whole family,” Abigail said. “When I go to school, they only know me. But at swimming, everyone knew my mom. Everyone knew my dad. Everyone knows the situation. So I felt more comfortable there.”
Her first race of the season was the midnight meet on Sept. 5 at the Wes Deist Aquatic Center — the same venue her mom had taken her to so many times before.
It was the first Abigail didn’t receive a “good luck” text from her. It was the first time not having her mom in the stands.
“That definitely crossed my mind,” Abigail said.
But she still put a personal record time in the 100 backstroke.
It was a sign of things to come.
Abigail has finished first in individual races in all but one meet this season. Just last week at the Class 5A District VI Championships at the same Wes Deist Aquatic Center in Idaho Falls, she won the 200 IM with a time of 2:21.53 and finished just four hundredths of a second in the 100 butterfly behind Mahealani, who is the defending state champion. They also helped Idaho Falls win the 200 medley relay and finish second in the 400 freestyle relay.
“I’m very impressed with how quickly she was able to get back,” Mahealani said. “If that happened to me, I would have given up everything. It’s definitely been motivating for everyone.”
Her mom echoed those same sentiments.
“That’s a huge loss for anybody, but for her age, being in high school, it’s got to be enormous. So I’m impressed that she’s able to stay positive and come out with a very positive outlook,” Elizabeth said. “She’s almost even stronger because of it.
“I think swimming has helped her get through this. I feel like she’s used it to recenter herself and figure out what she wants to do in life.”
Around her neck, Abigail always wears a manta ray necklace — a gift her mom brought back from Hawaii, her favorite place.
In Abigail’s bedroom sits a small wooden urn that her father crafted, containing a portion of Melinda’s ashes. Each of his children has one. The main urn sits at the family’s cabin in Island Park, where they plan to slowly scatter her ashes at their favorite outdoor spots over the years.
On her nightstand lies an adventure book — a scrapbook styled after the movie “Up” that she made for her mother last Christmas break. It is filled with family photos and handwritten notes. Melinda kept it by her bedside during her final months.
And there’s the personal, handwritten note that Melinda specifically left for her. She’s keeping that one to herself.
“Over the summer, everything reminded me of my mom in a sad way,” Abigail said. “I felt like it was never going to go away. But the difference now is that it’s in a positive way.”
{p dir=”ltr”}She’ll hold onto and use all that at this weekend’s state meet where Aaron will be officiating from the pool deck. The rest of her family − minus Jackson − will all be there, as well.
And somewhere, Melinda will be watching, too.
“I’m also just trying to swim for myself this year, and just because I like it,” Abigail said. “But I would say I’m dedicating this year to her.
“I think my mom would be really proud of all of us. We just kind of kept going, even if it was at a slower pace. And so I think she’d be really proud of us for that.”
