So when the time came for her to sign — or not sign — a four-year contract renewal at Channel 12 at the same time her sons were entering high school, she took a breath and looked around. “I realized I was ready for a transition. It was a different season, and I was ready for an encore career devoted to making the world a better place,” Cooney said. She spoke with the then-executive director of Hospice of the Valley, who had an unexpected idea: Join them. “She said, ‘We don’t need clinical. We need somebody who has community ties, who can educate, inform and present all the things we do and all the things we are.” Cooney felt that call to serve. “This society is afraid of dying,” she said. “We don’t treat death like we treat birth, which is reverent and beautiful. We don’t plan for it. So it happens in the back of an ambulance, on the way to a hospital, or in an emergency room because we’re not thinking ahead. How do I want that moment to look? Where do I want to be?” Cooney accepted the role of director of community engagement and now works to teach the public about what hospice is, and just as importantly, what it is not. “People think you go on hospice to die, and that’s the exact opposite of what we are,” Cooney said. “We want you to live every moment you have left. So it’s like, ‘What’s on your bucket list? What joy can we pack in?’ That’s how we see it.” To learn what the organization does on a granular level, Cooney steeped herself in hospice work. She went with chaplains and read scripture to patients. She helped bathe them and went with social workers to listen and sympathize. Along the way, the former journalist found her new life’s mission. “I feel like I get to get up every morning and serve. I feel so grateful for that, because people Hospice of the Valley pet therapy animals — including dogs, cats, a bunny and a miniature horse — provided more than 2,600 patient visits last year. Photos courtesy of Hospice of the Valley 22 FRONTDOORS MEDIA | APRIL 2019 COVER STORY CONTINUED