How do we become more ALIVE in this one precious life?
In this episode of Beauty in the Break, we sit down with actress, producer, and stand-up comic Jennica Schwartzman for a raw and deeply moving conversation about grief, losing a parent, and finding aliveness in the aftermath. This episode is a gift for anyone who’s experienced the heartbreak of sudden loss or who is learning how to rebuild identity through creativity, community, and courage.
Jennica's father—a pastor, a curious soul, and a performer in his own right—died suddenly, leaving Jennica and her family in shock. What followed wasn’t just emotional devastation—it was an avalanche of responsibility: paperwork, passwords, banks, wills, emails, and digital trails. As Jennica says, “It was months and months and months of the business of death.”
This episode gets honest about what it really means to lose a parent and step into adulthood in an entirely new way. It's not just about bills or funeral planning—it's about becoming the keeper of legacy, the translator of a life, the adult who stays behind.
“There's so much more radical acceptance and understanding and humility in my love of humanity, having known a second person more intimately than I ever could." – Jennica Schwartzman
After her father’s death, Jennica didn’t set out to reinvent herself. She simply knew she needed to feel alive again. That led her, somewhat surprisingly, to the mic: stand-up comedy became her unexpected form of facing a fear and stepping into her own aliveness. In her late 30s, she began performing not to fulfill a lifelong dream, but to reclaim her own presence.
Grief doesn’t just leave a hole—it creates a shape you’re forced to grow into. In this episode, we reflect on what it means to become "the dad," to hold the family’s emotional weight, and to walk through the world carrying the voice, values, and echoes of someone who shaped you.
Through it all, Jennica teaches us how grief and creativity aren’t opposites—they’re often part of the same wild, sacred process.
If you're navigating your own grief journey, or supporting someone who is, this episode offers something rare: a candid look at the business of death, the strange gifts of post-loss identity, and the unexpected ways we laugh, break, and come alive again.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or any other podcast platform.
With Love,
Foster