The Last Shift: Honoring a Nurse's Life of Service

Nurses are there in our darkest nights, our hardest hours, our miracles and our losses. But who honors nurses at life’s end? In The Last Shift, we share the powerful tribute of a Nurse Honor Guard, who ensure that no nurse’s legacy goes unrecognized, and the story of a nurse who spent nearly five decades in the nursing profession. https://bit.ly/48DcSof

In this Episode:

• 01:59 - An Essay by Ruth, 79, a Nurse For Nearly 50 Years
• 08:18 - Recipe, Pizza and Dip
• 09:23 - "Nurse" - A Pandemic Short Story
• 16:10 - Nurse Honor Guard:  What it is, and How you Can Have a Nightingale Tribute
• 23:49 - The Night I Learned What it Meant to be "The Nurse"
• 36:02 - Outro

#nurses #nurse #ServingOthers #NurseFuneral #NurseMemorial #CareerNurse #NightingaleTribute #CareerChoices #MidnightOil #NurseHonorGuard #EverydayService  #EveryoneDiesThePodcast #EveryDayIsAGift 

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:59 An Essay by Ruth, 79, a Nurse For Nearly 50 Years
• 8:18 Recipe, Pizza and Dip
• 9:23 "Nurse" - A Pandemic Short Story
• 16:10 Nurse Honor Guard: What it is, and How you Can Have a Nightingale Tribute
• 23:49 The Night I Learned What it Meant to be "The Nurse"
• 36:02 Outro

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Everyone Dies, the podcast where we talk about serious illness, dying, death, and bereavement. I'm Marianne Matzo, a nurse practitioner, and I use my experience from working as a nurse for 47 years to help answer your questions about what happens at the end of life. Today, we are republishing our podcast about the Nurse Honor Guard.

The Nurse Honor Guard is a group of nurses that volunteer to pay tribute to nurses at the time of their death. The five-minute ceremony follows the format of the Nightingale Tribute at the funeral or memorial service. This service is similar to a military tribute and honors the nurse's career and services to his or her community.

You know, all I've ever wanted to be when I was a child was a nurse. I didn't have any nurses in my family, and I didn't even really know any nurses, but for some reason that really I can't name, I knew that being a nurse was what I was meant to do. At the time, my mother told me that being a nurse would be good because I would have something to fall back on.

I honestly didn't have any idea what she was talking about. In my head, I was going to be a nurse, I was going to work as a nurse, and I was much older before I figured out that she was talking about having something to fall back on if my husband couldn't support me. And honestly, I thought that that was a really outdated idea.

I graduated from my nursing program in 1978 and continued to work in nursing. I've had a great career in nursing, and I've never regretted the rigor required to get and keep my nursing license. In 1978, we still wore the white uniform, the starched hat, wrote our nursing notes by hand, and gave back robes to people before they went to sleep.

And none of those things are done anymore. I was scrolling around social media recently and found the following anonymous essay. It struck home to me, so I thought I would read it to you.

Nobody ever asked me which hospital I trained at, they just wanted to know if their mother would make it through the night. My name is Ruth, I'm 72 years old, and I was a nurse for nearly five decades. I don't have a wall full of diplomas, no one ever invited me to speak at a business conference, but I've held the hands of thousands of strangers while their hearts were breaking.

And I can tell you this, not once did it matter what college I went to. What mattered was whether I showed up, whether I stayed, and whether I cared. I remember school career day a few years back, everyone else wore suits, doctors, lawyers, an investment guy with a laser pointer.

I went in in my old white shoes and a badge that still spelled fatally of antiseptic. When it was my turn, I told the kids, I'm not here to impress you with titles. I'm here to tell you what it feels like to be the only one awake at 3am, listening to the beep of a monitor while a family prays for one more heartbeat.

I'm here to tell you what it's like to sit in a dim hallway with a cup of bad coffee, knowing you're the only one to tell a daughter her father didn't make it. And I'm here to tell you about the miracles, the little ones, like when a child finally takes a breath on their own after weeks on a ventilator. That's nursing.

It's not glamorous, but it's real. The kids lead in, they ask questions nobody ever asked the lawyer. Did you get scared? Do people die in your arms? Do you cry? Yes, yes, and yes.

After class, a quiet girl came up to me. She whispered, my mom cleans houses. People act like that's nothing, but she says she takes care of families in her own way.

I bent down and told her, your mom's right. Taking care of people is never nothing. It's everything.

That's what people forget. Nurses, janitors, caregivers, plumbers, electricians. We don't always get the headlines, but the world doesn't turn without us.

We're the ones who show up in the messy moments. The moments where titles and prestige mean nothing and compassion means everything. We've created a culture where success is measured in degrees and corner offices.

The truth is, when your child spikes a fever at midnight, and when your grandfather falls, when the power goes out in a blizzard, it's not the resume that saves you. It's the people who have spent their lives in the trenches, keeping the lights on, keeping the oxygen flowing, keeping hope alive. Last winter, one of those students, now a grown young man, wrote me a letter.

He said, I'm at nursing school because of you. I thought people like me weren't smart enough. You show me that being present, being steady, and being kind, that's what matters.

I sat at my kitchen table with that letter and cried, because that's it. That's the whole point. So here's my plea.

The next time you meet a teenager, don't ask, where are you going to college? Ask them, who do you want to help? And if they say, I want to be a nurse, or I want to take care of people, don't just nod politely. Tell them you're proud. Tell them the world needs them, because it does.

And when the night is long and the machines keep beeping, you'll be glad someone like them decided to show up. This podcast does not provide medical nor legal advice. Please listen to the complete disclosure at the end of the recording.

Hello, possums, and welcome to Everyone Dies, the podcast where we talk about serious illness, dying, death, and bereavement. I'm Marian Matzo, a nurse practitioner, and I use my experience from working as a nurse for 45 years to help answer your questions about what happens at the end of life. And I'm Charlie Navarette, an actor in New York City, and here to offer an every person viewpoint to our podcast.

We are both here because we believe that the more you know, the better prepared you are to make difficult decisions. So please relax, get yourself something to eat and drink, and thank you for spending the next hour with Charlie and me for our discussion about everything you always wanted to know about the nurse's honor guard but were afraid to ask. In our first half, Charlie has our recipe of the week and a short story about nurses.

In the second half, I'll talk about the nurse's honor guard, which is a program to honor deceased nurses. And in our third half, Charlie has an essay about how nurses know that they should be nurses. So when I, I've been retired for a couple of years now, but I can remember working in a hospital at all hours, staying late and being hungry.

And the only thing usually in the kitchen are peanut butter and graham crackers. So if you mentioned peanut butter and graham crackers to just about any nurse, they'll tell you, oh my God, I lived on that. Or, oh my God, I can't eat that anymore because I ate so much of it when there was no food around and the cafeteria was closed and all of that.

So for, and also for nurses, we generally like to do potluck meals. People bring in a variety of different things and dips are always pretty popular. And this week's recipe is from the Adventures of a Nurse webpage and combines two of my favorite foods, pizza and dip.

So Charlie. You know, you said my name after dip rather quickly. Well, you know, it's like peanut butter and jelly, like peas and carrots.

Like Abbott and Costello. So if you are looking for a super easy dip recipe for your next funeral lunch, this pizza bread bowl dip is incredibly easy to whip up, to whip up. And six ingredients.

A savory pizza dip that will win over any crowd and a cheesy dip that is served right in a bread bowl rolled into one. You save all the center of the bread that you cut up to make this bowl and use that to place around the pizza dip for guests to dip and enjoy this creamy and cheesy pizza dip recipe. Voila.

Voila. Now, we have a short story for you entitled Nurse, written by Roddy Dow, an author from Ireland. It was published in 2020 during the COVID pandemic.

She sits at the table. She feels the back of the chair behind her. She needs it there.

It's holding her up. She's afraid to sit back on the couch, to luxuriate, to let go. She's afraid to close her eyes.

She's not sure what's in the fridge. She's not sure if there's anything in the fridge. She can't remember this morning what was in the fridge the last time she stood in front of it before she left.

She thinks she remembers milk. She thinks she remembers a carton being heavy in her hand as she put it back. She thinks she remembers a packet of tortellini and half a banana.

She's not hungry. She's starving, but food would make her sick. Anything, it doesn't matter what, would feel uncooked and wrong in her mouth.

It would choke her. She'll have to eat. She knows that.

She will. She wants to phone her mother, but she won't, not yet. She isn't ready.

If her man asks how she is, she won't be able to answer. She won't say what she wants to say. She won't say anything that she feels belongs to her.

She'll be out of control, not herself. It's dark outside now. It wasn't when she sat.

Although she doesn't think she's been sitting here for long, she can hear the usual noises, the children next door, on the stairs. It must be bedtime. Bedtime in early morning.

That's when she hears them. She doesn't think they're speaking English, shouting English, screaming English. The fridge is ticking.

There's a house alarm whining down the road. The noise has been there since she sat down. She shares this place, but it's empty, wiped clean, wiped lifeless.

She'd love to see a mug, a bit of a mess. The other girls are gone, home. She's the only one who had to stay.

Her phone is alive with alerts, but she doesn't look at them. Looking would make her feel more isolated and confused. This is our Vietnam.

What gobsheep said that, her father asked when she told him last week. She thinks it was. Another girl, she told him.

Don't listen to her, love, said her dad. It's not Vietnam. It's no one's Vietnam.

It's a hospital. I don't want to be harsh. Is she a pals of yours? Is she? Not really.

Well, if she wants to pretend she's fighting the Viet Cong, let her. Tell her to watch Platoon. She laughed.

Her dad loves all the war films. Unless she thinks she's in the Viet Cong. Does she? I don't think so, she'd said.

Are you in full metal jacket, he'd ask. It's what he calls the PPE. All of his jokes come from war films.

No, she said. I don't wear at home. Her face hurts from the mask.

It feels as if a branch sprang back and smacked her face. She's sure there are red marks across her cheeks. She won't look yet.

Behind her ears is sore, too. Two people died today, Joe and Marie. The zip on a body bag, it's not like any zip she's heard before.

It was her first time hearing one today and watching the zip close over her chest, the face. Joe, he had to go into two bags. That's a procedure.

They washed him and they spoke to him. They told him what they were doing, even though he was dead. She said nothing at first.

Then she copied Aine, the senior nurse staff. We're turning you onto your side now, Joe. It was easier when you talked to him.

No one spoke when Aine's closed the first body bag. The rest of the zip, like it was being pulled through wood, is the last thing she'll hear when she closes her eyes, when she goes to bed. She held the tablet close to Joe's face so his wife could see him three hours before he died.

She phoned her up and told her two minutes after he died. You're great, his wife said. You're all great.

She'd gone down to reception to collect a picture, a framed photograph of Joe with his wife and five children that one of his sons had left there to go into the sealed coffin with Joe. They won't be able to see him again. Four sons and a daughter, all adults.

The daughter was gorgeous in the photo. Lucy, Joe told her the name. A week ago, she'd listened to Joe talking to his wife.

Not only a week. I'm alive, it's great. Each word was separate.

A different effort. Great took ages to come out of his mouth. But his face? He meant it.

Lucy was pregnant. I'm the happiest man in the world. She'll stand in a minute.

She'll go upstairs. She'll have a shower. She'll bring her clothes downstairs, put them in the washing machine.

She'll look in the fridge. She'll eat something. She'll go outside and turn on the telly.

She'll keep the sound down. She'll check her phone, make sure the alarm is ready for the morning. Then she'll phone her man and dad.

Her dad first. He'll make her laugh and she'll cry. He'll listen and he'll tell her that he loves her.

It's kind of hard to remember those days of COVID thankfully, but that's what we were going through. Yeah. Please go to our webpage for this week's recipe of pizza bread bulldip, plus additional resources for this program.

Your tax-deductible donations are always welcome so that we can continue to offer you quality programming. Thank you in advance for making your donation at www.everyonedies.org. That's every the number one dies.org. Marianne. Thanks, Charlie.

This week I'm telling you about the nurse's honor guard and I'm not telling you about it for any other reason other than I think that if you have a nurse in your family and don't know about the honor guard that you should. It's a wonderful ceremony to offer a nurse at her wake or at her funeral. I'd like you to know about it and talk with the nurse in your family and see if he or she wants that included as part of their funeral planning.

Now, Charlie, my first exposure to the nurse's honor guard was probably about 20 years ago when a colleague of mine died. The honor guard in their capes and white nursing hats arrived for the ceremony to honor their deceased sister and called all the nurses in the church to join them in laying a white rose on the casket. It was really touching and something I knew that my friend would have loved and just for the record for my kids and husband I'd like that too.

So, you know, we're not generally focusing on one profession but I really just want you to know about the honor guard and the honor guard recognizes men and women who have dedicated their professional lives to nursing and to pay respect to them at their funeral. The honor guard is usually a non-profit. It's an all-volunteer group that will, upon request, attend nurses' funerals to celebrate nurses' lives, their dedication to their caregiving careers.

Working semi-retired and retired nurses are honor guard members. Families request their presence at the wake and or funeral where the nurse is paid tribute similar in nature to a military tribute and then officially released the nurse from their nursing duties. The honor guard wears a white uniform with a navy cape and the ceremony starts with a brief introduction in which they say, nursing is a calling, a lifestyle, a way of living.

Nurses here today honor, let's say, Mary and her life as a nurse. Mary is not remembered by her years as a nurse but only by the difference she made during those years by stepping into people's lives, by special moments. Then they read a poem written by Dwayne Wager called, She Was There.

When a calming, quiet presence was all that was needed, she was there. In the excitement and miracle of birth or the mystery and loss of life, she was there. When a silent glance could lift a patient, family member, or friend, she was there.

And those times when the unexplainable needed to be explained, she was there. When the situated demanded a swift foot and a sharp mind, she was there. When a gentle touch, a firm push, or an encouraging word was needed, she was there.

In choosing the best one from a family's thank you box of chocolates, she was there. To witness humanity, its beauty, its good times and bad without judgment, she was there. To embrace the woes of the world willingly and offer hope, she was there.

And now that it is time to be at the greater one's side, she is there. So then they do a rose ceremony where they say, we'll use Mary again, Mary we honor you on this day and give you a white rose to symbolize our honor and appreciation for being our colleague. Then they have what they call a call of duty, calling the nurse three times and ringing a triangle bell each time and then saying, we officially release you of your nursing duties.

Now during the ceremony, a nightingale lamp has been burning and it's at this point that they will blow that out and give it to the family member with condolences. So think about the nurses that you've known in your family or when you or someone else has been sick. Nurses have been called angels for what we're willing to do and there always seems to be the story about the nurse from hell that is perceived not to have met the patient's or the family's needs.

Yeah, where would we be without nurses? USA Today reported in May that the United States nursing shortage worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. About three in 10 registered nurses says they were likely to leave their careers due to the pandemic, according to a 2023 survey of nurses by AMN Healthcare, a staffing company. Another report by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing found about 200,000 registered nurses left the profession since 2020.

More than 600,000 intend to leave by 2027 because of stress, burnout, and retirement. They're quitting and they're overworked and they're underpaid and they don't feel like they get respect. Unfortunately, these reasons have not changed in the 45 years that I've been a nurse.

But back when I started in nursing, even though I think we thought we were radicals, we were still good girls and did as we were told and went above and beyond and stayed late and came early because it was a calling. And in talking with younger nurses now, they don't talk about it as a calling. They talk about it as a job and they talk about work-life balance.

And they are not willing to do more without being paid for doing it. And it's a change that I see in the attitude, but maybe that's the change that we need in order to change the culture and change the pay scale and change the things that make nurses want to leave the profession. Nurses are your line of defense for medical errors.

They are there to answer your questions, to comfort you, make sure your symptoms are managed, and to place their cool hand on your fevered brow. When a gentle touch, a firm push, or an encouraging word are needed, our nurses are there to witness humanity, its beauty, in good times and bad, without judgment. Our nurses are there to embrace the woes of the world willingly and offer hope.

Our nurses are there. Honor the nurses who care for you. Thank the ones that you know.

And when they die, please arrange for the nursing honor guard tribute. So in our third half, Johnson & Johnson has given a lot of money to support nursing and nursing education. And they did an essay contest, I don't know if it was a contest or not, asking people about, asking nurses to write the night I learned what it meant to be a nurse.

And there's, I mean, you can Google those, and we have the reference in the show notes where you can look and read about the things that nurses do. So Charlie, what do you think it is to be a nurse? Well, I just remember the nurses I've encountered in my life either, you know, working side by side with nurses, having fallen in love with a nurse many, many years ago. And I know it's been swell to have a nurse on speed dial throughout my adult life, which would be you.

Though you never offered any lollipops. But, you know, the great thing about you is that you listen like nobody's business. Yeah, it's one thing to have a conversation and just talk about stuff, but when it's something of a physical nature, or, you know, somebody's upset about something, like, you know, some emotional thing is going on, and I bring it to your attention or, you know, ask for your advice.

I mean, you just never miss a step. Yeah, I don't know how the hell you do it, but you have for, you know, all these years we've known each other, so Mazel Tov. Yeah.

And the other thing, too, it's just sometimes, again, just about listening, like you said, about a calling. I don't know. I know with me, I mean, there's just sometimes I really needed to get stuff out of my system.

And you just sit there patiently, let me get it out, and that's it. I mean, it's not like there's anything to interpret or to discuss. I just needed to get it out of my system.

It's called venting. And, you know, I don't know, you're just great at that. Well, thank you.

Thanks. Yeah. So, Martin Chiavenato, as a new nurse, talked about, the night I learned what it meant to be the nurse.

In the piece I'm going to read to you, he is now an associate professor at Washington State University College of Nursing. I was a brand new nurse working the night shift in the NICU, and one of my patients was an infant who was born so prematurely that we couldn't do anything to save his life. His young mother was stoic throughout the whole experience, and I felt helpless standing next to her, waiting for the inevitable to happen.

As I stood beside this grieving mother, she told me she wanted to have her baby baptized before he was gone. I ran to the charge nurse with a request, thankful to finally feel like I could do something. The charge nurse told me to call the chaplain, who didn't answer.

I called every chaplain on the list, only to discover that there was no one to be found in the middle of the night. I went back to the charge nurse with the news, and she said words that have stayed with me since. I guess you are going to have to do it because you are the nurse.

She must have anticipated that I was going to ask for another nurse or a respiratory therapist, I mean someone, anyone, more qualified to baptize a dying infant than me. So, I went back to see the mom and tell her that although I was unable to find the chaplain, I would baptize her baby, if that was okay with her. I took a small baby bottle of sterile water in one hand and held the infant in the other.

I asked the mom the baby's name and recited some words I must have learned in Sunday school. When I poured a bit of water on that dying baby, dried him off and handed him back to his mother. She held the baby for a little while and placed him on the bed, and she hugged me and cried.

I hugged her back and I cried too. In that moment, I understood what it meant to be the nurse. And I think that's the thing about nursing is that we have so many of those moments.

And I wanted to be a nurse from the time I was a little girl. And it's really has been an incredibly fulfilling mission for me since I graduated in 1978. But like I said, I think the view of the men and women who are going into nursing is changing.

And I don't know what that's going to do to our profession. I don't know if it's going to make things better or if it's going to make things more difficult. I'm just not sure.

I guess we'll find out. Yeah, but to your point, everything that you and nurses do and have done, people just take it for granted. I mean, during COVID, yes, nurses, doctors, even people who would bring towels and clean sheets were suddenly elevated to a higher level.

Now that COVID is not as bad as it was, you see it too. It's like, oh, okay, it's a nurse, like you're nothing. And that's just not right.

Oh, and during COVID, they paid people, they paid nurses a lot better and a lot of different differentials and incentives and things like that. And the minute that COVID started ramping down, they got rid of all of those extra contracts and incentives. And then the acuity didn't change and the difficulties of working in a hospital didn't change, but then they essentially took all of those incentives away.

And the other thing too is that people hear that you're a nurse and they'll naturally assume that they can ask you anything and that you'll answer them and that it's going to come to people free. And we had a plumber here once last year and the guy was like, well, I can do this or I can do that, but my fee for a consultation is $150. What? No matter how long, no longer, no matter how long I stay.

And in the courses, he's scratching his side. I said, what's wrong with your side? He said, oh man, I got under a house and I got sugar bites and I'm just dying. He says, what can I do for that? So, I kind of went through it with him and I said, and afterwards I said to him, and you know, my usual rate for consultation is $150 so you can take your consultation rate off of my bill.

And he just laughed and my husband just laughed and I thought, why is that funny? I just used my experience to help you. So, did he take away the fee? No. Son of a bitch.

He just thought it was, he just thought I was being funny. It's like, well, maybe I was being funny, but not really. Yeah.

You know, and to your point, I remember, you know, when COVID was at its worst and, you know, nurses finally, many nurses, you know, would be traveling, they would leave their families behind because they were making great money traveling on the road. And then people started to become critical. It's like, you know, how could a nurse charge so much? This is not fair.

People are in need. But to your point, you know, people are always in need and just take it for granted that a nurse will be there and that's it. You know, nurses are not properly compensated.

I mean, and it's one thing to be a nurse in New York City. It is different if you're in some rural part of the country or even in a smaller city. Tell me about that.

You know, Maryann, in case you don't know. Like in Oklahoma? I mean, it's just not right. Well, the thing is, is that the way that they do billing in hospitals is that they don't take out, there's not a charge for nursing services.

You know, we're just lumped in with the laundry and the food bill. You know, you get a separate bill for your anesthesiologist, you get a separate bill for your doctor's care. But there is no separate, they don't cost out.

So here's what it is for the nurse. And so since we're lumped in with all those basic services, you know, it's, I think a part of it, a big part of it is how they bill or how they account for those services. But God forbid, you know, you'll hear people say, oh, I was ringing the call bell for an hour and nobody came.

Well, nobody came because they staff in such a way that there aren't enough nurses there to come. You know, and then, you know, nurses were known for, like I said, you know, we'd eat, you know, graham crackers and peanut butter because, you know, we missed the point where the cafeteria was open. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And nurses are known for like never going to the bathroom because, you know, like we don't have time to go pee. So we hold it and hold it. But it's honest to God true.

It's honest to God true. But when, you know, when you're in pain or you're in the hospital, it's like you wanna push the button and you want somebody to come right away, and you should. You should have somebody come right away.

Yes, yeah. But they're not staffed in such a way, and so who gets hollered at, who gets, you know, talked about as, well, you know, you didn't come when I called you. It's like, sweetheart, I came as soon as I could, you know, but I had this guy coding or, you know, there's.

Yeah, like you said, if someone's coding and somebody needs, I don't know, a stronger aspirin, yeah, exactly, what are you gonna do? Well, and, you know, you wanna do both, you wanna do both, but you, you know, you're not gonna get a second chance with the guy who's coding, so other people will have to wait, and it's awful. You know, you don't wanna do that to people. So, that's our story about nurses and the Nurses Honor Guard.

So, keep that in mind, folks, and please stay tuned for the continuing saga of Everyone Dies, and thank you for listening, and on occasion, thank a nurse. This is Charlie Navarette, remembering the old adage, no one should be invited to a funeral, and everyone should come. And I'm Marianne Matzo, and I'll see you next week.

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