In Memoriam | Everyone was in love with Milan, the adventurer who lived out of his backpack. He passed away at the age of 29

He rarely celebrated Christmas at home for the past ten years. He was always travelling, amazed in countries such as Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Laos, Australia, New Zealand, Sint Maarten and last October he was in Thailand. Milan traveled after the summer.

The travel bug had caught him when he was on a defense mission in Iraq. There he had tasted new cultures and had become interested in how people could also live. He easily made contact with strangers, questioned them to the fullest, was fascinated by their habits, their food – he absorbed all that novelty like children do.

Did his colleagues buy a car when they came back from Iraq; Milan said goodbye to defense and bought a plane ticket. He went out into the world, because in Iraq he had seen that a person needs nothing to be happy. He fearlessly went on an adventure, only to be away for months or years. He lived out of his backpack and when he ran out of money, he went to work for a farmer or became a sailing instructor.

Milan was not afraid

Milan Middelweerd was born in Delft, has an older brother and a younger sister. The young family exchanged Delft for Beilen, where he made the neighborhood unsafe as Batman, his favorite superhero. He thought. He played football and basketball, was not afraid even then. His school career was in fits and starts, he wanted to join the army and even though not everyone was in favor of it – he went anyway.

He retained that imperturbable and stubborn character. He could stand his ground in arguments, and at the same time he could suddenly look at the issue from a different angle and defend that point with fire and sword. This sometimes caused misunderstanding or annoyance.

But above all, he was mild and seemed to broaden his horizons as he saw more of the world. That freedom translated into a kind of generosity: Milan became an open-minded man who inspired those around him with his enthusiasm and courage.

He explored distant lands barefoot

And it didn’t get too sweet, he was too fearless for that. Without a driver’s license and barefoot, he drove for days on end through distant countries, he surfed, boxed, spent nights chatting on the warm beach. Girlfriends came and went, Jenn from America was his last and longest relationship. ,,Everyone was in love with Milan”, his sister-in-law says.

Carefree was his motto: Hakuna Matata he had tattooed on his upper arm, out of the song The Lion King which contagiously proclaims that it will all work out in the end.

Working night shifts at Youth Services

That sunny life came to an end due to corona. He came home, was able to live with a friend in Groningen and transformed the men’s house into a cozy home in no time. He loved to cook there – always vegetarian – devoured Ottolenghi’s recipes, was a fan of the market. He read a lot: about wars and trees, about octopuses and bitcoins. And he started working at Youth Care, where he initially only worked night shifts.

That was by accident. The young people felt comfortable with the good-natured, tough guy who built them a gym in his spare time with equipment he bought second-hand. Who offered a listening ear and a strong shoulder. Who wanted to become a youth worker.

Whether he would really commit himself to Groningen and a regular life or whether he would still prefer the sun and freedom – it remains uncertain.

And then he got sick: a flu or corona, he thought

Milan celebrated Christmas extensively, with family, friends and in the city. It couldn’t end. At the end of Boxing Day, he cycled to work, where he worked a night shift. He looked forward to getting some sleep.

Once home, after work, he didn’t feel well, he had the flu, he thought, or corona. He didn’t eat, slept a lot, got breathing problems. On New Year’s Eve, a friend took him to hospital, but Milan looked too fit and strong to keep him there.

On New Year’s Day at 8:30 am he called his brother and asked him to come. He made him soup and a smoothy. Milan took that and said he had never felt so sick.

His brother went home in the afternoon and made sure that two friends of Milan kept an eye on things. He was barely home when Milan called to ask if he could please come back. “I’m in a hurry,” he said.

From the Martini to the UMCG

Milan’s face was gray, his lips blue. His brother lifted him into the backseat of his car and raced to Martini Hospital with the windows open for extra air. There, tests showed that he had a major infection in his lungs. The doctors decided to treat him further under anesthesia. Milan wanted that. He and his brother hugged each other. See you later, they said, and: it will be fine.

Milan had to go to the UMCG: he survived the ambulance ride, he survived the connection to the heart-lung machine. After that nothing worked. Milan passed away on January 2 at 11 am.

Speechless, his loved ones sat around him. They had sometimes held their breath when he showed himself a daredevil in the mountains, when he surfed in the wild sea. Milan could have been caught by a shark if necessary, that would have suited him better than dying from a seemingly harmless flu in combination with a bacteria.

Cheese soufflé sandwiches

The farewell was beautiful and sad and busy. Via a live stream, his friends from abroad watched that unreal image of the cheerfully daubed coffin with Milan’s guitar, his skateboard, boxing gloves and photo camera on it.

After the ceremony, there was a party in a warehouse on the outskirts of Groningen. With music, of course, with drinks and with cheese soufflé sandwiches, because Milan wanted to make a splash in the new year with that.