After her husband, Jim, died in a whitewater rafting accident in Colorado in 2016, Allison Parker entered a state of shock—and her life continued to spiral downward. She became a caretaker to both of her elderly parents, who moved in with her—and her beloved dog was diagnosed with cancer. Her dog soon died and she cared for her parents until 2022, when they passed away within 30 days of one another.

“After their deaths, what I realized is that I hadn’t truly grieved Jim,” says Parker. “The combination of it all led me to this really dark place.”

Bereft and broken, she followed the advice of good friends and headed to Canyon Ranch in the Berkshire mountains for a reset. “I was like, ‘I don’t want to be on antidepressant medication, this is a temporary thing,’” she recalls thinking. “I wanted something more homeopathic.”

And while visiting the famed wellness retreat, she spoke to several grief counselors and met other people who were struggling. “Everyone said, ‘You need something to focus on,’” she recalls, “‘and it should be positive and a challenge. It should be something that makes others happy.’”

Back in Baltimore, she serendipitously turned pain into purpose while making chocolates for the Christmas holidays.

“My relatives were making cookies, and I decided to make chocolate for the holidays,” says Parker. “I couldn’t believe how hard it was—I was like, I am going to figure this out.”

Through trial and error, the former public-relations veteran has gotten so good that last year she started a business called Moxie Chocolatier.

“People were tasting these and telling me I needed to sell them,” says the 62-year-old Parker. “The name Moxie came from the fact that it takes so much to do this at this age, and start a whole new career.”

Moxie’s exquisite line of organic, high-cocoa-content confections includes bars and bonbons (from mandarin-orange ganache with lemon bitters to banana ganache with dark chocolate) and are now stocked on the shelves at Culinary Architecture in Pigtown and the Spirit Shop in Mt. Washington. Her confections are also available at Sushi Ya in Owings Mills and the Bjuiced juice bar at Coppermine fitness (where she also sells energy bars, granola bars, and mixes).

And while her sweets have made others happy, they’ve made Parker happy, too.

“I was the person who would never admit I was depressed,” she says. “At Canyon Ranch, I met so many people who were okay with saying, ‘I’m not okay.’ It gave me permission to accept that I needed help. A couple of years ago I was walking in New York and I realized, ‘Oh my god, I’m happy.’ I hadn’t been happy in so long that I forgot what it was like.”