Nurses salute their own in final tribute

By Gail Parsons

Long before high-tech hospitals and electronic records, nurses answered the call to serve — by lamplight, on battlefields, and in homes. From Florence Nightingale’s quiet care in wartime tents to today’s fast-paced hospital halls, nursing has always been a calling rooted in compassion and sacrifice. That spirit still runs deep, and today, the National Nurses Honor Guard helps ensure it doesn’t go unrecognized, not even in death.

In funeral homes and church sanctuaries across Georgia, the Nurses Honor Guard gather in crisp white uniforms to perform their signature “Nightingale Tribute,” a solemn, moving ceremony that honors nurses who have passed away. At its heart is a candlelight memorial, a symbolic ringing of the bell, and the presentation of a small Florence Nightingale lamp to the family.

“It’s a way to honor our nurses,” said Dr. Erica Edfort, a retired nurse and nursing educator who helped launch the Ogeechee Region chapter of the Honor Guard in late 2023. “It’s showing how much we care. Many people don’t get that recognition.”

The local Ogeechee Region Honor Guard, serving Effingham, Bulloch, Screven, and Jenkins counties, has quickly grown to over 20 volunteers and performed 19 tributes since its founding. Part of a nationwide grassroots movement that began in Kansas, its members—retired nurses, active professionals, and educators—dedicate their time to honoring nurses with farewells steeped in the profession’s traditions and values.

Each ceremony is personal. Edfort said Honor Guard members begin by learning about the life and work of the nurse being honored. Families are invited to share stories, anecdotes, and career highlights. Whether a nurse worked in a busy emergency room or a small-town clinic, whether they served for decades or just a few years, the tribute is tailored to recognize their unique contribution.

“I sit down and speak with the family members, sometimes for an hour or two, just to find some specifics about what their family member was like, what they loved to do, what their passion was, and I incorporate that into the tribute,” Edfort said. “Then they really understand how we felt about the person that we're providing the tribute for. We’re not just reading something off of a piece of paper, a prepared dialogue.”

In one recent tribute, the team honored a retired neonatal intensive care unit nurse. Her family remembered her joking, “I love babies because they don’t talk back—but some of the grownups do.” That line found its way into the tribute, prompting quiet laughter through the tears.

“The laughter in the chapel was quite uplifting, because the tributes themselves can be quite difficult to get through,” Edfort said. “It's not that we try to put levity into the tribute, but we try to include whatever information we can about the nurse that we're representing.”

These moments — sacred and personal — are what make the Nightingale Tribute unlike other memorials. At the close of each ceremony, a bell rings three times: once for the nurse’s service, once for their compassion, and once to mark their final call to rest.

The family is then presented with a lamp, signifying the Nightingale lamp they all received when they graduated from nursing school.

“We light the candle at the beginning of the tribute, and we blow it out at the end,” she said. “Then we present it to one of the family members.”

The Ogeechee chapter operates on word of mouth and community connections. Volunteers monitor obituary notices, maintain contacts with funeral homes, and share information through nursing groups and social media. When they learn that a nurse has died, they verify credentials through the Georgia Board of Nursing, then reach out to families to offer the tribute, always at no cost.

Anyone who has held a nursing license is eligible to be honored.

The white uniform worn during the tribute is modeled after the traditional nurse’s dress, a visual connection to the legacy of caregivers throughout history. The Nightingale lamp, which glows softly during the ceremony, represents hope, guidance, and the enduring light of service.

For Edfort, the work is deeply personal. Before she retired from Chamberlain University in New Jersey, she had heard of the Honor Guard but only briefly. There were no chapters near her. After moving to Effingham County, she was a presenter at a nursing conference where she learned about the Coastal Georgia Honor Guard.

Although she has retired and now lives far from where she once worked as a nurse and educator, her passion has moved south with her. Being retired, she was looking for something to keep her connected to the nursing world, she found that in the Honor Guard.

“Nursing is a passion,” she said. “You have to have the passion to be able to do what we do. We don't only care for the person under our purview. We have the patients, we have the families, we have our coworkers, we have our personal families, we have our friends, we have our neighbors. We are always nurses. We never stop, and once a nurse, always a nurse.”

In a fast-moving world where the contributions of caregivers are often taken for granted, the Nurses Honor Guard offers something rare: a quiet, powerful pause to say thank you.

Because in the end, nurses spend their lives caring for others. And they deserve to be cared for—right up to their final goodbye.