{"id":94645,"date":"2019-02-04T14:21:45","date_gmt":"2019-02-04T13:21:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=94645"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:23:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:23:12","slug":"in-the-final-stretch-youre-basically-thrown-back-on-yourself-which-means-ill-be-meeting-julie-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2019\/02\/04\/in-the-final-stretch-youre-basically-thrown-back-on-yourself-which-means-ill-be-meeting-julie-too\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018In the final stretch, you\u2019re basically thrown back on yourself \u2013 which means I\u2019ll be meeting Julie too\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

In September 2018, the 20-year-old medical student Julie Hoofwijk perished in a road accident. On 7 April, her friend and fellow student Annelieke Kropman will be running the Rotterdam Marathon in her honour. She\u2019s doing it for Julie, and to raise funds for a foundation that informs the public about organ donation. \u201cHer last wish was to become an organ donor, but she didn\u2019t get the chance. This way her wish can still be honoured, to an extent.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Annelieke in her house in Coolhaven with her Djini. \u201cJulie didn't like Djini at all, she's more of a dog person.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLevien Willemse<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

The news reached Annelieke on Sunday morning, 9 September, around 10. A mutual friend called her up in tears: Julie had died a few hours earlier in a road accident in her home town of Sittard, after cycling home after a party. \u201cI remember having all these questions, which of course she didn\u2019t know the answers too either. After hanging up, I just sat there on the couch, saying \u2018this isn\u2019t possible,\u2019 over and over again. You\u2019re completely dazed for the rest of the week. It doesn\u2019t really register. It only sinks in bit by bit. Particularly after seeing Julie at her parents\u2019 place later in the week. At the wake, you finally understand that this has really happened \u2013 although this is completely different to the realisation that she\u2019s gone for good. There\u2019s a long road in between.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, she felt angry. And she still does. \u201cWho gets in a car full of booze and drugs? And then starts speeding too? How could anyone be such an idiot? How can you live with yourself? It\u2019s difficult to accept how she died. Someone is snatched away in the prime of her life, at a time when she was happier than ever. That makes it even harder. I think it\u2019s different to when someone is very ill, or old. At least that gives you time to say goodbye. In this case, you expect to see each other next Thursday on the caf\u00e9 terrace, and swap stories about your holidays. Suddenly, this is no longer possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Budding friendship<\/h2>
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Julie Hoofwijk<\/span><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>

Annelieke and Julie met in September 2015, during their first year as medical students. They were in the same study group. As often with a budding friendship, Annelieke can\u2019t pinpoint the exact moment it started. You sit next to each other during a lecture every now and then; grab lunch together; run into each other at a party. And all of a sudden, you\u2019re best buds and agree to team up for the MFVR gala. You meet to eat and doll up together first. Annelieke slept at Julie\u2019s after the party.<\/p>\n

\u201cJulie was a very sweet girl. She was still young \u2013 she went off to study at 17. During the gala, she had to wear one of those fluorescent yellow wristbands so they wouldn\u2019t serve her alcohol.\u201d Annelieke is thinking back to the gala of 2015. \u201cShe may have been young but with a lot of things she was worldlier than I was. I didn\u2019t really drink alcohol at the time. And I had no idea that you could flirt with boys.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whenever they hung out together, they tended to have pizza for dinner. Home-made that is. Well, they didn\u2019t make the dough because that was too complicated. And the roll-out dough that you can get at the supermarket didn\u2019t always turn out right, so they eventually started using Turkish bread for the base. Topped with loads of cheese. If it were up to Julie, the pizza included at least three kinds of different cheese. After that, they often watched Flikken<\/em>\u00a0Maastricht\u00a0<\/em>\u2013 Julie loved that show \u2013 with Ben & Jerry\u2019s for dessert. Little things that become a habit without you realising it. Traditions that you only recognise as such after the fact.<\/p>\n

Pushing on<\/h2>

When a lecture was scheduled early in the morning, their group of friends often kept a spot free for Julie. \u201cBecause she was always late. And if the lecture was boring, she\u2019d chatter straight through it.\u201d Which isn\u2019t to say Julie didn\u2019t take her studies seriously. During exam weeks, she would hole up in the library more or less straight out of bed, and after it closed for the day, she would continue studying at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe would resit just about every exam you could resit in the Medicine programme,\u201d remembers Annelieke. \u201cBut she kept pushing on regardless. If I were her, I would have said at some point in the second year \u2018I give up, guys \u2013 it\u2019s too much work, or too hard\u2019. The fact that Julie didn\u2019t throw in the towel says a lot about her character. She worked incredibly hard, and did loads of other things besides studying. She was on committees, she was a coach at Skadi, she had tons of friends in Rotterdam and a large group of friends back in Sittard. Some weeks, the only reason she went home was basically to sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ski instructor<\/h2>
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Waiting before she could start on her clinical rotation, Julie decided to go to Austria for a while. A well-earned break, since she had gone to Uni directly after graduating from school at 17 and had spent the following years working hard to earn her bachelor degree. Her big dream was to become a ski instructor, so she had arranged to teach beginners in Austria that winter. Annelieke doesn\u2019t ski herself, but they had agreed that she would visit Julie over the Christmas holidays so she could teach her. Now that it\u2019s ski season again, with friends and acquaintances discussing their trip to the mountains, she thinks of Julie even more often.<\/p>\n

Just like when she\u2019s training for the marathon. She occasionally passes Julie\u2019s former student house during her rounds. \u201cIt\u2019s still hard to accept that I can\u2019t just drop by for a chat. Sometimes it\u2019s a nice feeling to remember Julie for a moment; other times it cuts like a knife.\u201d<\/p>\n

Organ donation<\/h2>\n\t
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\n\t\t\u2018It\u2019s still hard to accept that I can\u2019t just drop by for a chat\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

She had been playing with the idea of running a marathon again for some time now. In 2017, she did the marathons of Rotterdam and Amsterdam, but she had slacked off a bit after that. \u201cAfter everything that had happened, it wasn\u2019t long before I told Julie\u2019s parents \u2018I would like to run the marathon for Julie \u2013 and connect it to a cause that you believe would suit her.\u201d They really liked the thought of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

And this cause ended up being Stichting Innovatie Distributie Voorlichting Orgaandonatie (SIDVO), a foundation that develops public information and teaching materials about organ donation and studies the impact of the Netherlands\u2019 new organ donation legislation. Julie did a project about organ donation when she was still in secondary school. And as a student, she didn\u2019t hesitate to debate with fellow students who hadn\u2019t registered as a donor. \u201cShe thought this was important to do. Not so much to persuade people to take a particular course but to get them thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forty-two unpredictable kilometres<\/h2>

Julie\u2019s last wish was to become an organ donor. \u201cUnfortunately, it wasn\u2019t to be. She was left lying by the road for too long. This way, her wish can still be honoured, to an extent.\u201d It took Annelieke three days to raise the target figure of 2,000 euro. \u201cAnything that comes in on top of this is a bonus.\u201d<\/p>\n

She would like to run the marathon in under four hours. \u201cThat\u2019s rather ambitious though. And I would like to keep running \u2013 not drop to a walking pace at any point. Still, we\u2019re talking about 42 unpredictable kilometres. The thing I dread most is the final stretch: the last 10 kilometres, which you can\u2019t really train for. That\u2019s when you\u2019re basically thrown back on yourself \u2013 which means I\u2019ll be meeting Julie too. Of course, nothing like this was on my mind during the marathon two years ago. I hope it will give me the extra strength to keep going \u2013 precisely because I\u2019m doing it for Julie this time round.\u201d<\/p>\n\t

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If you\u2019re interested in sponsoring Annelieke\u2019s run, please visit her fundraising page<\/a>. This is also where she will be posting updates on the campaign and how her trainings are going.<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t

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De redactie<\/h2>\n\t\t\n\t\t
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