Bart Wesley Balint
On November 29, 2025, a final breath passed through Bart's body, leaving it in pristine stillness. It is our hope that his essence is now free of physical challenges and pain. Second son of Marlene J Komar and George E Balint, Sr (both deceased), Bart Wesley Balint arrived on August 28, 1959 in Columbus, OH. His younger brother, Bruce G Balint predeceased him. Bart is survived by his son Chris B Balint and wife Ann Russell, son Tyler Balint and wife Lee Warner, his second wife, Melanie Balint Gray, older brother George E Balint, Jr and wife Heather Balint, Bruce's wife Shelby Balint, Bart's first wife Sharon S Balint, stepdaughter Lindsey N Small, stepson Nik T Small, one granddaughter, and several nieces and nephews.
Bart lived a rich 66 years. He began life as an avid seeker of knowledge and information. He worshiped logic and the rational mind. As a grade-schooler, he admired and related to the comic book superhero, Iron Man for his brilliance, creativity, self-reliance, and his ability to guard his heart, protecting it from life's cruelties. A parallel walling off of Bart's heart remained in place for many years keeping him tucked away in what he later called his Cathedral of Intellect. His lifelong interest in Science Fiction arose in grade school and included Godzilla and other fantastical monsters on television. He eventually shared Star Wars with his young sons. Later his curiosity turned to the cosmos as he took up astronomy. He loved scanning the skies for meteors, eclipses, planets, and star systems.
Gifted with a mercurial, Mensa mind, he sailed through school, graduating as co-valedictorian from Weir High School in Weirton, W VA. Bethany College, W VA, became his alma mater, majoring in Chemistry, and he attended W. Virginia Medical School, earning an MD. In his last rotation in medical school he met his first wife, Sharon. First their son, Chris and then Tyler arrived completing their nuclear family. Meanwhile, his medical training deepened during residency, practicing anesthesiology, especially cardiothoracic, at West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh, PA. He signed on with a group anesthesiology practice moving the family to Erie, PA and eventually gravitated toward opening a private practice in Weyers Cave, VA. He focused on management of chronic pain at Balint Pain Management. He wore many hats at work. With his early interest in all things technological (think MS-DOS coding) he could troubleshoot many computer glitches in the office in addition to administrative duties, seeing patients, and performing procedures and surgeries in the hospital.
An offshoot of being a techno geek was an interest in gaming; early on he joined his boys and most recently his granddaughter in video games such as Doom and kid friendly Mario Kart and Lego Harry Potter.
While juggling professional responsibilities, he carved out time for sports with his family and friends. He and the boys trained in karate, he played tennis, went scuba diving, golfed, practiced marksmanship, and skied. Bart also managed to renovate a few farmhouses the family lived in, tended to mowing, cared for horses and native wildlife, and maintained needed farm equipment in his scant spare time.
He picked up guitar in his mid-teens, briefly playing in a garage band with his brother Bruce. A guitar became an extension of him, accompanying him around the world. Bart happily recalled his trip to London after medical school when he spent his days as a busker, robustly singing and playing American Pie to all travelers heading into the London Underground. Bart studied Flamenco guitar and learned many Brazilian rhythms under the mentorship of a fabulous Brazilian guitarist later in life. He produced several songs and enjoyed performing with musician friends at open mic and flamenco nights.
Truly a man of many skills and talents, he dabbled in water colors, pencil sketches, wood carvings, welded metal art, and digital art. He saw faces in nature, a phenomenon called pareidolia (Greek for beyond image or form), in the most everyday scenery. This, paired with his propensity for punning, created many amusing moments. He loved Gary Larsen's Far Side cartoons and cow tools.
A major turning point arose in his late 40's when he sustained a neck injury during a karate sparring match. Surgery to repair the damage left him in excruciating, unrelenting pain. In addition, vivid dreams arrived nightly, also relentless. It was all overwhelming. His active life came to a screeching halt and he did his best to resume working while living with chronic pain just like his patients.
Despondent, he reached a choice point: to hold onto disappointment, anger, and resentment of life, ruled by his judgmental rational mind and closed heart, or to turn toward and tune in to the richly symbolic, intuitive, non-rational messages of these dreams. He haltingly turned his attention inward; leaving the safe haven of his Cathedral of Intellect and journeying into the unpredictable terrain of his Heart-Mind. A few years along this path, he met his second wife, Melanie, and over the years an extended and blended family emerged. The two of them explored their inner landscapes and nightly dreams in parallel, continuing to discover each roadblock they had erected keeping them from remembering their innate wholeness.
His rigorous inward travels were mirrored by various life events: a standoff with a buck while pinned to a barn by its antlers; a harrowing flight on a small private plane; two solitary, silent retreats in the Amazon jungle; swimming with tiger sharks at 120 ft.; driving an airstream along a narrow hairpin-turn road before seeing the caution sign "No RV's and campers"; racing a tropical cyclone back to the safety of the shore off the Great Barrier Reef, to name a few.
In 2019, Bart decided to write a book, a memoir. Soon after, he received troubling news-he had a rare, incurable form of Lymphoma. And so began his dance with cancer. Not a battle, he said, because after all, those cancer cells were part of him. Simply a dance, at times awkward, clumsy, and so very painful. He chose a blend of grueling conventional chemotherapy, which helped off and on, but left him weaker and thinner over time, along with some alternative remedies. He worked on the book diligently during the pauses in treatments and completed it in 2024. So, we add author to his list of accomplishments. A second cancer, a stomach cancer, was detected late in 2025. He made the brave choice to enter hospice. His final days were both rough and full of grace-grace for all those who visited and cared for him and grace for him. He encouraged each person to make peace in their lives and let go of grievances as he continued doing the same. He laughed and cried with us all. Our hearts, though broken, are full.
A Celebration of Bart Wesley Balint's Life is scheduled for Sunday, 26 April, 2026 at 2 pm at Johnson Funeral & Cremation Services, 208 South Main Street, Bridgewater, VA 22812. In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to Hospice of the Shenandoah, hospiceoftheshenandoah@augustahealth.com or to CaringBridge, caringbridge.org . With deep gratitude.
