Turning Grief into A Thriving Business —
Starting this business wasn’t about profit.
It was about survival. After losing my spouse, I needed something to hold onto. Who would have expected to find a life preserver in SOURDOUGH. After almost 53 years of working with my sourdough starter, I took it for granted. It was part of the kitchen equipment. Now, it was becoming a strong focus to keep me afloat. To help me avoid sad drifting. I got up one morning and was inspired to dehydrate and package my vintage sourdough starter. I would offer it for sale on Etsy along with other people who have interesting starters to market.
The sourdough would be something to focus on. Something to get me out of bed. Something to keep me using the energy that I had been maintaining as a caregiver. I wasn’t willing to turn into a whining old woman, watching TV and dust accumulation.
I saw others selling dehydrated sourdough starters on Etsy. And I thought—why not me? Not just to make money, but to make meaning. Fox Park Strain Sourdough became a reality.
Sourdough becomes more than Food
Every batch I ship isn’t just flour and yeast. It’s resilience. It’s a reminder that life keeps going. The life chain of sourdough has the resilient qualities I am seeking. Sourdough is cultured for each baking project, whether bread, cake, cinnamon rolls or flapjacks. I find other sourdough fans reporting a vast number of baked items for their sourdough. The starter comes from its keeping jar each time to become a THING. It is a resurrection of sorts.
Not only do I enjoy tasty sourdough food in my now solitary household. I also like the process of keeping my sourdough lively and yeasty. It is an ongoing piece of my life.
Making it into a little business leads me to exercise other skills. I build a website and blog for the sourdough. I take photos of almost every crumb! I enjoy fixing them into suitable images for the website. Labeling them for the best SEO options. I have been trying to get myself stimulated to write more for my blogs for YEARS. Suddenly, I have the sourdough stimulant.
Every day, a new post begins to take shape. Each blog post requires planning, research, photo choices and keyboard time. I appreciate the tool on my computer which reminds me to get up and move. I watch the fitbit steps add up. I have something different to talk about with family and friends. I had been experimenting on a super small scale with the sourdough’s dehydration. I knew it would work.
Now, I clearly saw the sensible moves to invest in some tools to make the drying process more efficient and suitable for packaging. A vintage kitchen cart that my husband particularly liked has become a rolling storage source for the dehydrating, packaging, and shipping equipment and supplies. I’ve taken sample packages to the post office, explaining to the post mistress what I’m doing. She is enthusiastic about the possibilities. If I have more orders, I will be buying more postage…very important to small, rural post offices. Suddenly my project has community benefits beyond the doors of our house.
As I am building my business, I must step out into the open. People now know what I am doing. I’m building additional tools that will appeal to sourdough fans. When I join communities, I expect to be the one and only person who ‘gets’ sourdough. What a pleasure to find more people who are fans of the leavening source. People whom I will never meet face to face. Yet, in our community, I can stand up and say I’m a new widow. I’m here to build a life and a future with a jewel that I’ve been holding for over 50 years.
Mystique and Magic for the Future
I don’t know where this journey will take me. But I do know this: Sourdough has been with me for 53 years. Now, it’s carrying me through this season too. It’s giving me a strong focus to fill my days. It helps make me behave like an intelligent, ambitious person. It brings out my strengths. Fox Park Strain Sourdough gives me and my family something to brainstorm about. We’ve celebrated the first sales. We’ve celebrated that more ideas are slipping into my vision stream.
As well as being food to nourish our bodies, it has become a soothing option for moving forward. I’m not the only one experiencing this grief. My children are going through their grief experiences too. The bond of our family sourdough gives us all a life preserver to cling to. When we get together, we do it over flapjacks. Or toast.
Unexpected Purpose
I didn’t stir up a souvenir package in 1971 expecting it to be a life saver. I didn’t feed my family with the baked results for their growing up years expecting to have anything more but a leavening resource that we took care of. I didn’t see the possibilities that would utilize skills that I have been building in technology and mad scientist cooking over the years. I wasn’t planning on grief to be my stimulation. I had wanted to be a blogger from the day I learned how that worked.
Have you ever found purpose in an unexpected place? Are you watching your life for openings that will lead to more opportunities? You don’t have to wait for sadness. You can now! Or tomorrow. Just START.