Karen Scull is a Holistic Funeral Director helping families through the final weeks of their loved one’s life and beyond.

Talking about death - while a tricky topic for most to navigate - comes naturally for the McKillop College alumni having grown up around the dying and experiencing her own significant loss in Year 11 when her father passed away.

“As a child in Christchurch, my mum and grandmother worked at an aged care facility called Nazareth House. I went in at 7 years old and sat with elderly people - I essentially had 100 grandparents, it was amazing.

“I learnt from the nuns there about natural death. It wasn’t ‘they're sick, let’s get them antibiotics, it was “They're not eating, Sister Wilhelmina,” I would say, and she’d be like “It’s alright dear, we’ll give them a drink of complan”, and then a week later they wouldn’t be drinking their complan and she’d say ‘That’s alright dear, we’ll just sit with them and read the paper.

“So I learnt from a very young age about the natural dying process but also by the age of 9 I was sitting with people as they died. It would never happen today with rules and regulations etc but at the time, I literally grew up around death.”

Karen continued to work at Nazareth House as a highschool student at McKillop College in the mid 1970s which garnered the usual reaction of ‘How can you do that?!’ when students would learn about her job.

“I didn't think it was particularly special. I did not have a lot of teenage time, but for me being who I am and who I was, I needed my time to be filled but I needed it to be purposeful.”

Sadly in Year 11 (5th form), Karen experienced death in a very personal manner when her own father passed away from a heart condition. In the same year, another student’s father also died unexpectedly.

The support from the school community was good but it was Sister Colette Forde who really helped Karen get through the tough years that followed.

“Sr Colette was amazing. She was understanding but not too soft. She helped me a lot more than she will ever know.

“I can still see her at the front of the board, and I was sitting at the back of the room - I always sat in the back after dad died. I was probably crying quietly and she just said come outside let's have a talk, and that's when she said what are you going to do? And we had this chat about what I was going to do.

“For me personally, Sr Colette had a way of encouraging me but also enabling me to dig deep for my own answers especially when dad died. She was very understanding and very compassionate, everyone was, but she had this extra edge to her where it was yes Karen this has happened, how are you going to make this work for you now? That was her approach.

“Sr Colette just got me. She had no fuss. I didn't want the fuss. She gave me the tools and she just had a way of being able to do that. It was probably one of her biggest successes that she was able to access everybody's tool box and she was able to add a tool to everybody's tool box. I get really teary because I still have those tools today. She was great.”

During her Year 12 (6th form) year, Karen struggled through school but Sister Eleanor Capper, who had recently become principal of McKillop College at the time, along with Sr Colette, pushed her through till the end.

“My final year was probably my hardest year at school even over and above the year dad died. That was when everything came crashing down for me.

“I had a bit of an issue with a teacher and that teacher thought I'd be better off in the library. Sr Eleanor found me in the library and asked what are you doing here? and she’d walk me back to the classroom and then the same thing happened again and so I spent most of the year/the rest of the year of 6th form in the library.

“Sr Eleanor wasn't happy about it and I said look I don't even want to be here. She encouraged me. She said, ‘Karen you’ve got the energy to do this, use the energy well you’re nearly there just get there. Whatever you need to do just get there’. For the rest of the year I didn't want to be at school.”

However Karen stuck it out and passed University Entrance.

After leaving McKillop College, Karen intended on going into nursing but was accepted into disability training at Templeton Hospital so pursued that instead. She completed her training in disabilities and eventually graduated to work as a staff nurse and acting charge nurse at Templeton Hospital.

“In the end, it wasn’t for me. It was way too big and as much as it was home for the people who lived there, it did not sit well with me the way they were treated so I thought no I can't stay here.”
A spur of the moment decision, encouraged by a friend, led Karen to purchase a one-way ticket to Australia and she has never looked back. She continued to work in aged care and disabilities and eventually trained as an End of Life Doula. That training led her to the work of a Holistic Funeral Director.

Now working in Holistic Funeral Care, Karen believes the faith she gained and the values she learnt from the teachers at McKillop College still make up a big part of who she has become.

“I'm not a practicing Catholic now, but regardless of that I still hold my Christian values very, very close. They have guided me all my life and I don't ever forget that. Furthermore, the three people I bring up as having the greatest influence on me - Sr Colette, Sr Eleanor and Sr Wilhemena - are all women, all practising Catholics, and all very strong people. I have so much admiration, respect, and gratitude for those women because all of them together were a big part of where I am today.

Where I am today, working as a Holistic Funeral Director, I feel like I am just meant to be here.

“When my dad died, I could very easily given up but Sr Colette wasn't going to have that. She just knew what I needed in that moment. So here I am in this space doing the same for my families, finding tools for them to move on with.

“I think if McKillop really gifted me anything - it was Sr Colette.”

Article added: Tuesday 21 January 2025