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Nine Nights and Funerals Back Home

Ready for the call nobody wants: short-notice travel home, nine nights and wakes, funeral arrangements and shared costs, repatriation, remembrance and grieving well across the water.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Then open the Marketplace in the app, search for Nine Nights and Funerals Back Home, and click Install. It goes into your own files, and works offline from then on.

What it installs.

1

Pillar

1

Area

50

Projects

202

Starter tasks

🌴 Caribbean Life & Diaspora

Nine Nights and Funerals Back Home

Handling a death in the family back home: travelling at short notice, nine nights and wakes, funeral arrangements and costs, repatriation and grief.

  1. Family phone tree for news of a death back home
  2. Ground rules for sharing news of a death
  3. Passports and travel papers ready for short notice
  4. Emergency fund for flying home at short notice
  5. Bereavement leave and cover at work
  6. Funeral wishes conversation with your parents
  7. Agreeing in advance how funeral costs are shared
  8. Funeral papers, plot deed, policies and memberships
  9. Funeral grants and death benefits back home
  10. Monthly sibling funeral fund
  11. Burial society or benevolent fund membership
  12. Yearly death readiness review
  13. Showing up for other families' wakes and funerals
  14. Grave and tomb upkeep from abroad
  15. Death anniversaries and remembrance days
  16. Grief notebook for the first year
  17. What happens in the first 48 hours after a death back home
  18. Nine night, setup and wake traditions across the islands
  19. Learning the sankeys and hymns for the nine night
  20. Hindu funeral rites in Trinidad, Guyana and Suriname
  21. Muslim janazah and burial back home
  22. Church funeral customs by denomination
  23. How repatriation of a body works
  24. Grieving from far away
  25. Shortlisting a funeral home back home
  26. Family plot, vault or public cemetery
  27. Repatriation cover for relatives living abroad
  28. Sending a body home or burying abroad
  29. Setting a funeral budget the family can afford
  30. Flying home at short notice for a funeral
  31. Registering the death and getting certified copies
  32. Death announcements on radio, in print and online
  33. Funeral programme booklet
  34. Writing the eulogy and tributes
  35. Hosting the nine night or wake
  36. Burial day, church, procession, graveside and repast
  37. Livestreaming the funeral for family abroad
  38. Collecting and accounting for family contributions
  39. Thank-yous after the funeral
  40. Sorting clothes and belongings after the funeral
  41. Memorial service abroad for those who cannot travel
  42. When you cannot travel home for the funeral
  43. Bringing children raised abroad to a funeral back home
  44. When a death back home involves police or a post-mortem
  45. Supporting a partner through a death in their family back home
  46. Repatriating a body home
  47. Bringing ashes home for interment or scattering
  48. Building the tomb or headstone
  49. Planning your own funeral across two countries
  50. Family memorial archive

Where it starts.

Each project arrives with its purpose, milestones and first tasks written out. Here is how the first three read.

Family phone tree for news of a death back home

When someone dies back home, the news usually reaches one cousin in Brooklyn or one sister in Birmingham first, and the next hour decides whether an elderly parent hears it from family or from a Facebook post. A written phone tree, saying who calls whom, in which order and in which time zone, means the right people hear it gently and nobody is left out because their number changed.

First tasks

  • Write the names of everyone who must hear first if a close relative dies
  • Collect current numbers and time zones for each person on the list
  • Agree with siblings who calls whom and in what order
  • Save the tree offline on two phones and share it in the family chat
  • Ring round to confirm every number on the tree still works @recurring(quarterly)

Ground rules for sharing news of a death

Almost every family has a story of an aunt learning of a death from an RIP post or a voice note forwarded three times. Agreeing simple rules now, such as no social media posts until the immediate family say so and one person who confirms the facts, saves real hurt in the first hours and stops wrong details about the cause of death spreading through the district.

First tasks

  • Draft five short rules for sharing news of a death in the family
  • Ask the elders back home what they expect to happen first
  • Name a spokesperson for each side of the family
  • Pin the agreed rules in each family group chat

Passports and travel papers ready for short notice

Flights home for a funeral are often booked within 48 hours, and an expired passport, a child's missing document or an unrenewed visa can mean missing the burial altogether. Checking every adult's and child's papers now, including the entry rules for the passport each person would travel on and the re-entry rules for the country you live in, removes the one obstacle money cannot fix in a hurry.

First tasks

  • List every passport in the house with its expiry date
  • Book renewals for any passport with under six months left
  • Check entry and re-entry rules for each person on official government sites
  • Write a consent letter template for a parent travelling alone with a child
  • Check every passport's expiry date and travel authorisation @recurring(yearly)

Make it yours.

Install Nine Nights and Funerals Back Home, then tell Aurum the date you're aiming for. It checks whether the plan fits the weeks you actually have.

Free · Mac (Apple silicon) and Windows · v1.0.0 · Other platforms

Blueprints are general information to help you organise your own work. They are not medical, financial, legal or other professional advice. See the Terms.