Aging With Purpose and Passion is the award winning podcast for women over 50 who know they're not finished yet. They're navigating reinvention, career change, retirement, relationships, caregiving, and the deeper question of what they want now.
Hosted by Beverley Glazer, MA, CCC, a work and life transition coach for women over 50 and midlife reinvention strategist, Aging With Purpose and Passion features stories from women over 50 who have faced change, challenged expectations, rebuilt confidence, and refused to let age — or anything else — define what is still possible.
Each week, Beverley and her resilient guests explore reinvention after 50, career change, retirement transitions, menopause, empty nest, caregiving for aging parents, divorce, grief, health challenges, business transitions, entrepreneurship, relationships, ageism, leadership shifts, ambition, resilience, mindset, purpose, and self-trust.
These are not polished success stories or generic conversations about starting over. They are real, practical, emotionally intelligent conversations about what happens when the life you built no longer aligns with who you are today.
Aging With Purpose and Passion is not about chasing youth, forcing positivity, or pretending change is easy. It is women over 50 and far beyond, telling the truth about what they feel, what they've been through, and what becomes possible when they stop talking themselves out of settling for less.
You may come for someone else’s story. You may leave ready to change your own.
New conversations released weekly.
Learn more at ReinventImpossible.com/podcast.
🔗 Resources
Beverley Glazer, MA, CCC Midlife Transition Expert, Reinvention Strategist, and Host of Aging With Purpose and Passion
Life After Loss: Who Are You Now? | Rosemary Vaswani
•Beverley Glazer, MA, CCC, ICF | Work and Life Transition Coach for Women Over 50•Episode 200
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Landman actress Rosemary Dominguez (Rosemary Vaswani) on widowhood, sudden loss, identity, grief, and finding a way to want something from life again.
What happens when the future you were counting on suddenly disappears—and you’re still here?
For women over 50, a devastating loss can take more than someone you love. It can take the future you expected to share, the roles that made life feel familiar, and even your confidence in who you are without them.
In this episode of Aging With Purpose and Passion, Beverley Glazer talks with actress, writer, and storyteller Rosemary Vaswani, known professionally as Rosemary Dominguez, who appears in the Paramount+ series Landman.
Rosemary and her husband, Eric, had been together for 26 years when vague symptoms became something neither of them could have imagined. Within weeks, Rosemary went from wife and mother to caregiver, and then widow, after Eric was diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a rare and rapidly progressive neurological disease.
There was no time to prepare for what came next.
Rosemary was grieving while raising their teenage daughter, managing responsibilities that had once belonged to two people, and trying to function in a world that continued as though hers hadn't just changed completely.
We talk about the parts of widowhood people rarely see: the paperwork and practical decisions, but also the anger, fear, loneliness, loss of confidence, and those ordinary moments when the absence of the person you love becomes startlingly real.
And then life asks something else of you.
Not simply: How do I survive this?
But:
Who am I now?
Rosemary talks candidly about grief, caregiving, motherhood, empty nest, acting, and the unexpected role writing played when words became a place to put what she couldn't carry quietly anymore.
That writing eventually became When I Press Stop: A Memoir of Loss, her memoir told through poetry.
But this conversation isn't about “moving on.”
It's about living after the life you expected is no longer possible.
It's about what happens when resilience isn't inspirational or heroic. Sometimes it's paying the bill, showing up for your child, going back to work, asking for help—or simply doing the next thing because there is no one else to do it.
And eventually, another question emerges:
How do you keep wanting things from life after life has taken something irreplaceable from you?
Stay until the end, when Beverley shares key takeaways and practical actions you can begin using immediately.
IN THIS EPISODE
How to rebuild your life after the sudden death of a spouse
Coping with widowhood and grief after 50
What happens to your identity when the future you planned disappears
Parenting a teenager while grieving your partner
The practical realities nobody prepares you for after a spouse dies
How sudden loss can affect confidence, independence, and sense of self
Finding support through grief counseling and spousal-loss groups
Navigating empty nest after losing your spouse
How writing and creative expression can give grief somewhere to go
Learning to want something from life again after profound loss
🎁 The Gift of a Safe Space: A private, non-judgmental zone away from work and family to focus entirely on your needs, your journey and what's next for you. If you are feeling stuck in your transition, this is your space to exhale.
Have feedback or a powerful story that's worth telling? Contact us at info@Reinventimpossible.com
Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion, the podcast for women over 50 and beyond who know much more lies ahead of them. Listen to real stories, hard truths, and life-changing choices that may lead you seeing your own life a little differently. Here's your host, work and life transition coach, Beverley Glazer.
Beverley Glazer
Who are you when your life you lived is no longer possible? Welcome to Aging with Purpose and Passion. I'm Beverley Glazer, a work and life transition coach for accomplished women over 50, to make the changes they know they need when their life no longer works. And you can find me at reInventimpossible.com. These conversations go beyond inspiring stories. They're about the moments that make you stop, question what you thought you knew, and make hard choices. We don't sugarcoat anything here. We talk about the challenges, what it took to move through them, and what became possible on the other side because of it. I want you to meet a very special person. This is Rosemary Vaswani And she's a successful actress, a writer, a storyteller, and you may have seen her many times. She's now on the hit series Landman on Paramount Plus and has appeared on Grey's Anatomy, Criminal Minds, Better Called Saul, Everybody Hates Chris, Law and Order, and so much more. And her book, though, goes beyond all those credits. The book is called When I Press Stop, and it's a memoir born from the sudden death of her husband. It's about caregiving, it's about motherhood and resilience that arrives when you no longer have a choice. If you've ever had to change your life in a way that you never could have planned, this conversation is for you. And stay with us until the end, and I'll give you quick tips and actions that you can do for yourself
too. So welcome, Rosemary. Welcome. Thank you. What was it like growing up for you, Rosemary? Were you the only child? Were you like what was that life?
Rosemary Vaswani
I was uh the middle child of three, it was three of us, three sisters. And my dad was from India, and my mom uh was from Dominican Republic, and we grew up in New York, and then we moved to Puerto Rico, but my parents were very strict, especially my dad. Uh so you know, I mean, even though we grew up in, you know, in the US, we we had a lot of a lot of restrictions on us, and um, but you know, I I mean two loving parents, but it it wasn't it wasn't easy seeing what my classmates were doing and what I wasn't allowed to do.
Beverley Glazer
So yeah, so so is that where storytelling came about? Fantasy, all that kind of stuff.
Rosemary Vaswani
Yes, I well, I start I started um uh writing when I was in uh high school. The first I the first thing I wrote was uh called phobias, and I got up on stage and I would I would talk about the different phobias and show uh and act act it out, my reactions to the phobias, and then I wrote about babysitting. So it started at that age, um, along with acting. Like I always knew I wanted to be an actress, and then the writing was was just kind of a part of it. Uh, and then when I moved to Los Angeles, I ended up meeting uh this woman who became my mentor, and I was part of a group called the Write Club, and I would write stories, and I wrote uh I mean, a lot of people know my dad because I would write about him, and I would do the Indian accent and the whole thing. It's like my mother, too. They're very colorful characters, so that was that was those were the stories I would tell, uh, because there was so much, so much juice there. So so um I performed those, and it was mostly comedies, you know. Um, but then things shifted in my storytelling. I I remember I I wrote a piece about my father's funeral, and uh, and I noticed, oh, there's a change. Like, where's where's the comedy? And then with the death of my husband, um I I knew I wanted to write about that. That that was something that happened very fast.
yeah. But before we even go there, what was your life like with Eric? What did you expect your life to even be with Eric?
Rosemary Vaswani
Oh, well, he was my best friend. Um, we met in 1995 in New York, and at that time he was in a band, he had a regular job, but he also performed at clubs like CBGB's, and it was very exciting. You know, we we uh we had a lot of time together as a couple, and then uh our daughter was born in 2007, and he was, I want to say he was the best dad, like the kind of dad that makes other dads go, man, I should be doing that. And uh just very, very hands-on. He was he's the kind of guy that would just could answer any question and go into like an hour discussion about it, and um and just was he was like the he was type A personality, right? So he he took care of the bills, you know. We we had our I would do uh certain things around the house. I was I mo I cooked most of the meals. He also cooked, but if I was home, I would I would do it or he would cook. And he took care, like I said, he he taught me at one point because he was complaining about the bills, and I said, I can help you, you just have to ask for help. And so he showed me how he was doing it, and so I I would take over here and there. Um, but like if we would go on a road trip, he was a guy that drove because other if I was driving, there was always like, oh my god, what are you doing? Just like you drive, I do not want to drive with you. So he was he was that guy, he was, you know, and I and it was fine. Um, so yeah, I mean, you know, we just we had we had a great relationship, we fought like any couple, which is totally normal. And uh, and I was looking forward to um uh when our daughter went off to college. He he got very emotional. He he would think, oh my god, I don't know if I'm gonna be ready when she goes off to college. And uh and he and he was the guy that got teary-eyed, and and I said, Eric, honey, you have to understand when she goes off, it'll be like a second honeymoon for us. It'll just be you and me, and it's gonna be different, and we have to, you know, enjoy that. Um, so yeah, so that that kind of sums up who who Eric was.
Beverley Glazer
Yeah, yes, yes, and so you were acting and doing, and life was good. It was good. And then what happened when your daughter did go off to college?
well, she so she did go off to college after he died, and um that was uh uh that was a little rough because um, you know, after he so he passed away in 2022, and she's in her second year of college now. Uh we grew very close. Um you know, when Eric was alive, the two of them were like two peas in a pod. They they had a very close relationship, and and I was so happy that she had that because I feel that you know girls should could should have that type of relationship with their dads. And I was grateful for it. After he died, the two of us got very close, and we just had so many deep conversations about what had happened with his death and how much we missed him. So when she left, it was uh I she ended up going to school in New York. Uh, the the whole in the entire plane ride back, I was crying. And the the Uber ride home, I it look it felt like I was going to a funeral. Like the guy didn't know, he just knew I had a luggage, he had no idea. And uh I walked into the apartment. I did not want to be here, and I felt and I felt like what am I doing here? Eric is gone, my daughter's in New York. What am I doing here? And uh I go to Reach to get my my shoe out, uh my my house slippers, and there's like a little note that's from my daughter, and it has like a number on it, and it said, I'm so proud of you, and uh and I think it said for landman or something, and it turned out that she had left 20 notes hidden around the apartment, and I was just I kept finding, I mean, in another note, like when I'm going when I was going to bed, there was a note on my pillow, and it said, Don't be sad, you'll see me soon. Give Georgie a hug. Georgie's our dog. I mean, I just I couldn't believe it. So it delayed my um my emptiness syndrome for like for like two weeks at least. And I was I was so grateful, and I thought, how how thoughtful of her to have done that because she knew what it would be like for me to be the one left behind. And uh I just thought it was just beautiful, and then you know, I mean, it it did, it did take me a minute to adjust to not having her here.
Beverley Glazer
I would say a little more than a minute.
Rosemary Vaswani
Oh, yes.
Beverley Glazer
Look at the losses, it's the loss of your identity, not only your husband, it's the loss of the family. Now you're an empty nest. It's like, who am I? How how did you struggle through that? I mean, you know, you questioned like, what am I doing here? Like, you know, where is my life now?
Rosemary Vaswani
Yes. I mean, I I honestly felt should I move back to New York? And just so I can be closer to her, but I I knew I wanted to give her the space. I felt like it was important for both of us to have space um to grow. Uh uh grow, I don't want to say grow up, but no, in a way, I mean just grow, right? Yeah, she need she needed to grow individually away from me, and I needed to do the same. So I just I made sure I engaged with my friends. I have one friend that that is one of those people that just talks to everybody. You'll go somewhere and at the end of the event, she knows every person in the room. So I did things with her. I went I went to listen to music and um, you know, concerts. I just I just had I forced myself to engage because I knew that if I stayed home and did not engage with people, that it was just it was not gonna be good.
And Eric went quickly. Was he sick? Was there anything wrong that you would have known?
Rosemary Vaswani
Uh, I want to say in January of 22, he started complaining about different random things, like his anxiety was a little higher. Uh, by the time we got to March, he he was concerned. He told me, I feel like maybe I have MS. Uh, I'm just feel, you know, in the middle of the night, my arm is jerking, or I'm I'm having some numbness, I'm having memory lapses. So he had gone to the doctor and he had seen, he had seen all sorts of doctors. And the last test that he had uh that he had not done yet was an MRI of the brain. And things kind of escalated. I would say in May in May, beginning of May, I was doing a Christmas movie here in LA. And uh that week that I was doing the movie, he just started to get worse. And I I noticed he printed out like calendar pages, and I thought, that's weird. He's like he's a techie, you know, he's always telling me, use the calendar, the home, the family calendar, and uh, and he's printing out calendar pages and asking me to remind him of things. And so by Mother's Day, I noticed I was off from the movie, and I noticed that he something was really off. And the way he was talking to me, and the next day on Mother's Day, uh, I mean, the Monday after Mother's Day, uh, he asked me to call an ambulance because he just couldn't, he was trying to work and couldn't understand what was happening, and just was having memory lapses where he couldn't remember what he had just done. And so we went to the hospital and they told me, they checked us in, uh, and they told us the next morning that they thought he had Kreuzville-Jaakov disease, which is a fatal disease that causes like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's like symptoms. And I remember thinking at that time, no, this is not, I don't believe this. They were gonna keep running tests, but I thought this is the kind of thing that happens to someone else. This is not our story. This is definitely not how our story ends. Uh, two days later, when we left the hospital, they had they had done a second MRI while he was there, and they told us that they thought for sure that that's what he had, but that they had sent the spinal fluid to the mayo clinic, and we'd know in two weeks. Um, we got a second opinion from an expert two weeks later, and he confirmed the diagnosis. But every day uh that Eric was home, and by the way, when I left the hospital, they said he cannot be left alone. So I thought, oh my God, so I'm I'm going, I you know, he's and I understood because he was progressing every single day. It was it was as though a year in the life of someone with uh Alzheimer's or Parkinson's had gone by. And our daughter was witnessing that, and she's like at the end, this is the end of ninth grade for her. Um and he he basically after I was given the official diagnosis in San Francisco, we I put him on hospice and uh he died 10 days later. Oh my goodness. It was it was all everything was basically a month from May 8th through uh June 7th. Um I in the end, I'm I'm grateful that it was fast because it was very traumatic for us to witness, and I know that my daughter kept saying, I I I feel so bad for dad, you know, when is this gonna end? And and I know Eric, and he would not have wanted this to
No, but here you are trying to support your daughter, trying to keep the family together, trying to be a support for Eric as much as you possibly could. How did you push through that, Rosemary?
Rosemary Vaswani
You know, I I have to tell you, in the past, I was the kind of person that would faint at something like this. And I and I did faint. Oh this is Eric had had some surgery on his nose when we were in New York and for deviated septum. And I remember when I picked him up, I got kind of woozy and I fainted as we were leaving the doctor's office. When I was given that news, I'm I uh uh here in LA, I was shocked that I didn't faint, but somehow there was something in me that just pulled through. And I had my my brother-in-law, who became kind of like my right-hand man and was helping me execute all of these things, and I needed to make sure that that the household that it it felt like a safe environment and it was calm for Eric as well. And so I had like this team of people, you know, my my little sister was in town, she helped arrange with for caregivers, so I just kind of like called in these people, and then we had people dropping off meals, and I don't know. I mean, somehow there was like this strength that I I wasn't aware of, just kind of just kind of took over and just pulled through. It was like, and I would go for walks in between, like while you know, somebody someone would stay with him, and I would just go for a walk and I would just let it out, let out whatever I was feeling. I would call my best friend and I would just I would just yell. And I didn't care what anyone on the street was thinking. I just felt like I need to let this out because the moment I walk into the apartment, I need to be there for Eric. I need to be that calm zen person that you know the doc the doctor at the hospital said you need to be like spicoli from fast times, just very, very like zen and calm. And uh, and I'm grateful that we were able to create that atmosphere for him.
Beverley Glazer
So, yes, yes, I can feel it as you speak. Okay, my goodness.
And how did you pull yourself out? You mentioned he was type A, you mentioned he would he took over everything, yes, and now you're alone. Yeah describe that. How did you process that? It's not just the grief, it's it's like who am I? And I'm alone, and I'm responsible now for my children, and I'm responsible now seriously for the for the books and the accounting and everything else. What was there panic? Was there anger? You know, like what was going on?
Rosemary Vaswani
Oh my god, yes. There was all of that. It's uh it's a very overwhelming feeling when you realize you are the only parent and you're responsible for this person. You need to make sure that you're paying the bills on time, that you're that you don't miss anything. And I remember at one point being so overwhelmed and and saying to some to maybe it was my brother-in-law, it's like, I don't know how I'm gonna get through next week or the end next month. And he said, one day at a time. And I and I I I'm so grateful I had the wherewithal also to to join like a um group therapy for spousal loss, and it's this program that goes they they asked for like a two-year commitment. I ended up doing one year, and I am I'm so glad I did. I was also seeing a uh a grief counselor on my own because there were so many things, and you know, you you have loss of confidence, like your your self-esteem, you you don't know who you are at when this happens. Um and somehow, little by little, I started having milestones or or uh at just just being able to also face the anniversaries, the birthdays, all of these things. I I never I never ran away from any of it. I felt it was really important to face everything as as it came along. Uh, I asked for help with financial stuff like understanding documents, things like that, uh, from people in the family that might know a little bit more about you know the stocks or things like that. Uh but uh yeah, I don't for four years later, I'm I'm a completely different person. I just I have a s a strength, like I said, that it it it just looks different. I'm a different person. And I ended up writing a book about what we went through.
Um yeah, tell us about that. It's not just a book, it started as poetry, literally poetry from your soul. It was you were just opening up to the page. Tell us about that.
Rosemary Vaswani
Yeah, so I I knew as a storyteller, I knew it was really important for me to share this story. And uh I thought I was gonna do it as essays, and but every time every time I tried to sit down and write, and I would start and I would just end up in in tears, and it was too much because I felt like I was reliving it. And I had an incident that occurred where I had gone to pick up my tax returns the first year, and I didn't know that there was going to be a little these section that said signing for the deceased spouse. And it was there uh twice I had to sign. And I when I saw those words that sent me into a spiral where I could not stop crying. I cried for hours that day. I don't I don't even know how I got home from Burbank to my home, but because it was just a nonstop. And I remember at one point I just grabbed a paper and a pen and I wrote about what happened. And it came out very staccato, and it was a poem, and I'm not I've never I've never focused on poetry in in the past, but I it came out as this poem called and which ended up being signing for the dead, and it is very visceral and just pretty, you know, it's uh anyone who reads it is like, whoa, I sent it to my grief counselor, and she she said, keep writing, this is amazing. And so when I was trying to figure out how to write this book, she reminded me, she said, You've written you wrote that poem before. You why don't you write it as poetry? So I sat down, and every night I would see where where I was at mentally, and I would I didn't write it in order, so whatever happened within that month, I would sit down and I would write um about the time he poured sunflower oil in a glass and left it on the counter, and then I saw it and my daughter saw it, and and so that's called sunflower oil, and you know, or I wrote about the time he was hallucinating and thought that there was like a river running down our hallway because he had taken a shower and the there was water in the bathroom floor, so so it's it's all all of these different incidents that occurred, and then I so all of a sudden I had 40 poems in 40 days, and then I uh ended up adding more for after after the death, like what it was like uh to move forward the anniversaries, um all of it, and I ended up teaming up with an editor at a certain point, and she uh guided me and kind of pushed me a little bit to share more than I thought I was going to share. And I'm really glad I ended up working with her because um I feel like the book became something I I dreamed of, but didn't think was possible. And uh it got picked up by a small publisher and it was also a semifinalist in a first book poetry competition, and uh so yeah, so it's getting public. Yes, it's incredible. Congratulations. How did that book change you? Oh my gosh, it gave me a confidence that I just it's uh it's kind of it's kind of overwhelming to think that I was able to uh to to do that, to finish it, to actually um it's it's an accomplishment that I I acknowledge that not everybody can go through. It's not sometimes I don't I don't allow myself to sit in it, right? To sit in the the fact that it it is getting published, that it was finished, that I did it, and that it's going to have an impact. And that is uh it's just hard to put into words. But I can feel it. I can feel the the impact that it's going to have and yes, and what it means for me as well. Oh, yeah, to have done that, to have shared such personal stories.
Beverley Glazer
Yeah, what would you tell someone else whose life just fell apart and didn't go as planned? What would you tell them, Mary?
Rosemary Vaswani
Uh I would say don't try to don't assume that that you can't get out of it, right? Don't assume that you're gonna stay in that same place because as you move through your grief, things will change. Yes, that that pain of that loss will always be with you, but you will find ways to um to manage it, right? And to engage in life. So I would say please engage in life, don't shut down because the person you lost would not want you to shut down, they would want you to keep going. And uh grief counseling, also I'm so grateful that I did that because I it's it it saved me and writing, being able to write about it, like any any creative outlet, even if you're not a you don't consider yourself a creative, being able to write about what happened and that person is something that I highly encourage because it lives in our body and it needs to come out.
Beverley Glazer
Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Rosemary. Rosemary Vaswadi is a successful actress, writer, storyteller who performs on television and film under the name of Rosemary Dominguez. She's currently on Landman, the Paramount Plus hit series, and has appeared on Grey's Anatomy, Law and Order, Criminal Minds, Better Call Saul, and Everybody Hates Chris and so very much more. Rosemary is also the author of When I Press Stop, a memoir of laws. It's a collection of poetry born out of the sudden death of her husband, Eric.
Here are a few takeaways from this episode. Grieving isn't something you finish, you just learn to live with it. Sometimes being strong is just the next thing that you have to do one step at a time. And moving forward doesn't mean leaving the person behind. If you've been identifying with this episode, here are some things that you could do for yourself right now. Stay connected to work, people, or activities that remind you of who you are. Try something you never thought you could do. That's empowering, and stop comparing your life to what you had. Begin with now. For similar episodes on aging with purpose and passion, check out Starting Over After 50, that's episode 180. And when life asks more than you can give, that's episode 194. And if you love podcasts of older women, Women Over 70, Aging Reimagined is an award-winning podcast and community that celebrates wisdom, resilience, and vitality for women over 70. And that's womenover70.com. And that link is also in the show notes. All those links are also on my site, too. That's reinventimpossible.com. And Mary, where can people find you? Please share your links.
Rosemary Vaswani
Yes, um, rosemaryvaswani.com. That's v for victoras w a n i ., com. I'm also on Instagram, uh Rose Poems, the bitter and the sweet sweet. Sorry. That's for my poetry. And then uh for acting at rosemary dominguez one. Um yeah, those those are the main places.
Beverley Glazer
Yes, great. Those links will be also in the show notes and on reinventimpossible.com. And now, my friends, what's next for you? What are you ready to leave behind as you move forward? Send me a note. I'd love to know. And if this episode spoke to you, subscribe, share it with someone who may need it. And remember, you only have one life. Live it with purpose and passion.
You've been listening to Aging with Purpose and Passion with Beverley Glazer. For more conversations and to explore Beverley's work, visit reinvent impossible .com. This story ends here. Yours may just be beginning.
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