She was only nine years old. Jurgen van Riel from Oisterwijk lost his daughter Luna to cancer in 2017. A week before her death, he promised to participate in Alpe d’HuZes to raise money for cancer investigation. Next Thursday he will again keep that promise. “Luna would be very proud.”
A brightly colored sea of hugs shows off Luna’s bed. Laughing Jurgen thinks back: “She could choose the craziest, ugly hugs.” Her room is still completely intact. The 48-year-old Oisterwijker likes to come: “It’s nice to grab her clothes and get the scents back,” he shines.
“A very sweet and quiet girl,” Jurgen describes her. She did not come to the fore and enjoyed life. She was crazy on elephants. A huge memory box shows off in the living room: full of elephants, photos and other things. A life -size work of art from her face, containing her ashes, hangs above the dining table. She still belongs every day.
“Then your whole world collapses.”
First, daughter Senna got cancer, but she is clean again. The family did not get any rest. Youngest daughter Luna got sick. She first had a headache and failure symptoms. Doctors couldn’t find anything. Until she received epileptic seizures and had to go to the hospital urgently. Luna was told in 2017 that she was incurably ill. “Then your whole world collapses.”
Luna Leptomingeal Melanocytosis, A rare form of cancer on the meninges. “She is the third child in the Netherlands that received that diagnosis,” her father knows. What he felt? “Unbelief, anger and sorrow.” Yet he learned to switch quickly: “Every day there was one. We did everything that Luna still wanted.”
A week before Luna’s death, Jurgen promises her to cycle on Alpe d’Huez. The idea is twice. “It must be three times,” said Luna. They agreed a fictional amount. “Then you have to buy a bike,” Luna told her father.
“Luna knew it was good.”
“Very special: on the day before her death, my target amount was together. She knew it was good,” Gluing beamed. Luna died just before Christmas on December 24, 2017.
Stuff
The heavy road to the infamous top of Alpe d’Huez has 21 hairpin bends and is 14.5 kilometers long. The height difference between Start and Finish is 1100 meters, with an average increase of 7.9 percent.
The promise is still standing. This year Jurgen will go up the famous and notorious mountain for the fourth year. Last year the race was briefly stopped due to bad weather. “Hagel, wind, storm and cold,” he remembers. “We came up with lower cooling symptoms and had to stop.” Force majeure, Jurgen puts things in such a way. “This year a new chance.”
He wants to struggle no less than six times, with a picture of Luna’s favorite elephant on his back. What drags him through it? “You are proud of yourself and you are proud of Luna. You are aware of the pain and a primal force comes up.”
Watch live
Alpe d’HuZes is an annual event where as much money as possible is collected for cancer research. Omroep Brabant reports all day on 5 June by Alpe d’HuZes. From nine o’clock Thursday morning to five o’clock Thursday afternoon you can follow the event live on TV and online.