RED CROSS – EDITION OF 13

Sorting through files and boxes of memorabilia at my family home in 2007, I stumbled upon an old pocket watch. It is the only item returned to my grandmother from the trenches of the First World War where her husband died at the Battle of the Somme. The watch face is damaged, the hands missing; eerily symbolizing the destructive power of war, the arrest of time.

It was the International Red Cross, which had returned the watch, reassuring the widow that her husband’s remains had been taken care of in a humane way amidst the turmoil of war. Her seven-year-old boy lived to become a surgeon, upholding the high ethical standards of the Hippocratic oath all his life. To me, his daughter, he passed on all his ideals and high hopes for a world in perpetual peace without agony and suffering. Today, 93 years after the Battle of the Somme, our world is still hurting and families all over the world are still mourning the loss of loved ones, killed in countless wars and conflicts; forgotten as quickly as the hands of their watches are moving; leaving behind memories of hopes lost.

In 1975 my husband was stuck in conflict-torn Angola. The now President of the International Red Cross made sure that he was able to leave safely. When we married in 1979, my husband and I decided to forego a big reception in favor of a donation to the International Red Cross. At the time the plight of the Vietnam Boat People was on the front page of every paper.