'Nightingale Tribute': Honor guard memorializes nurses' life of service
RIDGEFIELD - Linda Hayes stood before a small group of mourners gathered at Northwood Park Funeral Home and Cemetery on April 8 and called out the first name of Sharon Grover, a longtime Vancouver resident and nurse who died March 2 at 79. After a pause with no response, Elisa Timms, standing a few steps to Hayes' left, struck a triangle with a metal beater.
The nurses repeated the roll call sequence twice more, with Hayes asking Grover to report for duty - a request that, of course, went unanswered - and Timms striking the triangle, its shimmering chimes lingering in the warm afternoon air.
"We officially release you from your nursing duty," Hayes said after the third "ting," which marked Grover's "last shift."
Elyssa Morris then extinguished a white candle and handed it to a family member, concluding the most recent "Nightingale Tribute" conducted by the Southwest Washington Nurse Honor Guard, which performs brief tribute ceremonies at funerals and memorials to recognize a nurse's lifetime of service.
The group has eight active members, including six board members, and serves Clark, Cowlitz and Skamania counties. It has performed four tributes since December and is scheduled to do a fifth on May 2.
"I thought the group would be other retired nurses such as myself because we had more time," said Teresa Rousseau, the honor guard's co-chair. "But most of the members still work, and they're still here doing it. I'm just amazed. It's wonderful."
The Southwest Washington Nurse Honor Guard formed in September after Morris, a longtime nurse at PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center, discovered similar groups on Facebook and realized only one existed in Washington, in the South Puget Sound region. She connected with members of established honor guards in Salem, Ore., and Southern California and organized an informational Zoom meeting that helped lay the groundwork for the group here.
"I've been to military funerals and funerals for police officers, and they have their own honor guards. When I heard there was a nurse honor guard, I was amazed," said Morris, the group's chair. "It's about nurses honoring nurses."
Coincidentally, Rousseau had also been thinking about starting a nurse honor guard and learned of Morris' efforts from fellow congregant Timms after a church service.
"Nursing is a profession where it becomes your life," Rousseau said. "People see you and think 'nurse' if they know what you do. It becomes part of your identity. When I think of nurses who have passed, I want to honor them somehow, and this was just perfect."
The nurse honor guard movement began in 2003 with the Kansas State Nurses Association, which created the "Nightingale Tribute" after recognizing that many nurses' years of service went unacknowledged at their memorials. The American Nurses Association formally sanctioned the tribute in 2005, helping legitimize the practice nationwide.
Interest expanded in 2011 when nurses in Lansing, Mich., revived and shared the concept through social media, sparking the formation of the National Nurses Honor Guard Coalition. Since then, the movement has grown from a handful of groups to more than 300 nationwide.
"When you're a nurse, you go through trials together - very traumatic situations," Timms said. "This is another way of embracing that camaraderie and being there for each other, even in death. As nurses, we often have to separate ourselves emotionally to do our jobs. This gives us a moment to feel again."
Members begin a tribute by introducing themselves, explaining their presence and delivering a eulogy that reflects on nursing as a calling. They present a white rose to symbolize the nurse's career before formally releasing the nurse from duty, concluding the ceremony by presenting the lamp to the family as a keepsake.
"The tribute is an eternal 'thank you,' just like the military receives," said honor guard member Khyla Calhoun. "It's a final goodbye and a 'thank you for everything.' They might be gone, but they're not forgotten."
The Southwest Washington Nurse Honor Guard, which also performs tributes to living nurses in hospice care, is working to gain nonprofit status and hopes to launch a scholarship to support nursing students. Members also hope to grow the honor guard and help nurses in other parts of Washington start their own groups.
"We want more chapters in more areas," Morris said. "We'd like to see Washington covered so no nurses are left out. I get emails from people asking how to join, and when they tell me they're in places like Yakima, I tell them there isn't one yet, but I can show them how to start one because we did it ourselves."
While the group's broader goal is to ensure every nurse is honored, for Hayes, the mission is personal - a goal she hopes will one day shape her own farewell.
"I want this," Hayes said after Grover's service. "I'm not having anything else done when I die. I want to be cremated. But I want this."
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This story was originally published April 17, 2026 at 7:07 AM.