In our Heart of the Home series, we shine a light on the family caregivers who hold everything together — often quietly, often invisibly, and almost always while carrying more than anyone realizes. This month's story starts with something you might not expect in a caregiving feature: a joke.

One of the things I have enjoyed most in my time in senior care is sharing a laugh with a client or their family. So many people think of illness, hospice, and end of life as this dark, sullen period where you can only speak in whispers and hushed voices. I remember one client who was nonverbal due to her condition. Because she couldn't speak, no one spoke to her in a lightened manner — it was just clinical jargon and monotone discussions happening around her.

So I went in and told jokes.

I treated that person with respect, in the fact that I knew she was still in there — she simply didn't have the ability to speak. But it was in the eyes. I saw that glimmer. Someone took a picture of us together, and I held onto it after she passed and gave it to her family. They thanked me — because they had stopped taking pictures. They were too depressed about her condition to want to. But there she was in that photo: present, engaged, with someone.

Being sick or getting old doesn't mean you don't want to laugh. Laughter, in many cases, is the best medicine — and that is why I wanted to share the story of Rachel Austin: actor, writer, improviser, founder of the Love Labor Project, and an 18-year family caregiver who will tell you, without hesitation, that comedy is what carried her and her mom through.

Take us back — what did caregiving look like for you, and how did it sneak up on you? Was there a moment you realized, "I'm a caregiver now"?

I started caregiving at 16 years old. My mom was diagnosed with ovarian cancer while I was on summer break — I remember her first surgery, I remember when her hair started falling out, but everything seemed fairly normal. Until her neuropathy started. I used to hear her scream from across the house, and I would race to the kitchen to fill this bucket we had with ice water, so she could dunk her feet in it. Once it happened when a friend was over working on a school project. I think that's when I realized I was living a different life at home than my peers. I'm coming up on 40 years old, and I can still hear that scream.

You were young when you were caregiving for your mom. What did your peers around you not understand about what you were going through?

I had a couple friends whose parents were diagnosed with various forms of cancer. One came through it great, the other passed quickly. I went to a very small school, so we knew each other's families intimately. Those friends had two-parent households and siblings, which I did not have. I remember feeling very ALONE and very scared. Being an only child was always challenging for me, to be honest, and this experience just started bringing all of that back up to the surface.

My friends didn't understand that I still needed normalcy. They didn't want to bother me because they knew my mom was sick, but really I still needed to go out and be a kid. I needed to go to the mall with my friends, I needed to go to the school basketball games. I needed them to call me on 3-way after dinner… I started to feel kind of invisible.

I am quite a talker, and so I just kind of did that… I talked. I talked about what was going on, I talked to people about my mom's situation. I think I didn't want to feel alone in it. Ultimately, I became "the caregiver" in all of the communities I was part of, and people would come to me when their parents got sick to ask for advice and support. I liked that. I was a natural caregiver, leader, and teacher — I didn't really understand that at the time, but now I look back and can see how this sparked a lot of purpose for me. It brought something positive out of something hard.

Love Labor came from that experience — what made you decide to put something that painful on a stage?

I think the only answer to this question is: because I'm an artist, and that's what we do. I process so much of my feelings and the world through artistic expression. I like the challenge of articulating complicated feelings into something that can be consumed and universally felt. I also fundamentally believe we have to talk about everything — we have to start talking about what we all go through, so that we can be 1) not so scared of the unknown, and 2) better prepared to show up for each other.

I've learned throughout my decades as a working actor that the more specific your story, the more audiences can find themselves in it. If I start trying to tell other people's stories, I get lost and it's not as clear. So I stick to my story in my solo work - there's certainly enough to work with!

I just got done creating and performing my third solo work where I reimagined the day my mom died as a comedy — a bit of a disco romp. I re-lived the worst day of my life over and over again. As an actor, I don't use my trauma to get to an emotional place; I have developed a wide variety of other tools for that purpose. So this show took a lot out of me, to be perfectly honest. And it also was very well-received. People saw themselves in it, their own loss, their own love for their parents, their own challenges after a death. I had such a full experience: caregiver, executor of the estate, in charge of everything, the only one. I'm proud that I could bring all of that together and share it in a way that made others connect with loss in a way that made love the most important thing.

Comedy and grief seem like opposites — but you've made them partners. How did humor show up for you as a caregiver, and did that ever feel like a betrayal of how serious everything was?

Comedy is/was never a betrayal — it was always the balm that soothed us. So many ridiculous things happened along the way… I mean, colostomy bags are never not funny. Doing bits to make my mom laugh was good for both of us. You can't just sit in the despair and grief - I think comedy keeps us present, and that is good for the soul.

I can unequivocally say that despite it all, my mom and I had a damn good time.

You've trained police officers and doctors in improv. What does that have to do with caregiving — or does it?

Actually, I acted out scenarios for law enforcement and medical providers to practice on. I had some baseline character traits and pieces of the puzzle that stayed consistent, but the sessions were fully improvised, and I had to know when to sting them or reward them, and I had to pause when the trainers yelled "pause!" and then kick right back into gear from where we left off when they resumed the session. Good for the community, and also excellent acting training.

Teaching our public servants and medical professionals how to truly listen, be present with each individual they connect with, and map others' values was extremely important work to me. It takes what we're lacking in our society, and sheds light on it, while allowing folks to practice gaining those skills. We can't expect everyone to know how to do everything. We all have things to learn!

When your mom died, you said there was nothing in your control and it all went too fast. If you could give a caregiver who's in the middle of that chaos right now one thing to hold onto, what would it be?

My mom went fast and unexpectedly, and she couldn't speak. After 18 years of caring for her, I got no "I love you." I got no "goodbye." But during that day, a magical voice from the beyond whispered into my ear: "All there is now is to love, with no expectation of return. Just give. Just love." That's what I did, and I will live the rest of my life knowing I did right by her that day. I simply loved her as hard as I could. And that's the advice I would give — try and put your judgement of how it's happening, how it should be different, to the side, and just be PRESENT.

What did you need during that season that nobody knew to offer you?

She had pain in her abdomen one morning, and was gone in 36 hours. It never felt like much of a season, even though we had prepared for a season… I appreciated all of the friends and family who showed up for me after she died. I appreciated the love and support so much — the people who just came and stayed with me so I wouldn't be alone. My best friend who helped me manage all the STUFF for literally five years after she died. I would have some look that would come over me when we were going through my mom's things, and she'd just say "you never have to see this again," and just take it away somewhere. I hope I can return this favor to her someday. It's the decision fatigue plus the emotions of it all that just get to be too overwhelming. Ask for help.

The two years following her death were incredibly hard; I know some of my behavior shocked even me. It is such a strange thing to lose your mom, or to lose any primary person in your life. I lost my home base, my comfort, my relief, my cheerleader. It hit me hard, and rebuilding structures in my world that could mimic what I lost was a huge challenge, and some of it came with growing pains and more loss. I had a hard time celebrating my friends because I was in such a dark hole. If you know someone who's lost someone close to them, maybe give them 2 years of runway at least. It is a really tough transition.

Your solo show is called Do Over — what would yours actually look like? What would you do differently?

Is it too trite to say I'd make it so she just wouldn't die? I would make it not happen during COVID, that's for sure!

I will be very honest, this isn't something I think about on a real level, even if I made a show about doing over. I know that's probably strange, but I, like my mom, am a pragmatist. She taught me that life is all trade-offs. Maybe if something was different, it would've been easier — but it could've also been harder… We will never know. She is gone, and it is done. I accept this. The greatest power I have (we have) will always be my ability to move forward. I did so many things right that day, as hard as it was.

Smooch clearly has opinions — has having a pet been part of how you've processed grief, and do you think people underestimate that?

Well, first my cat died 15 months after my mom. I held him while he died, which is what I had done for my mom. I had a different relationship with death by then, but that absolutely sucked. I wound up getting my sweet pup a few months later, and that was a rough transition — I was having trouble bonding because I didn't want my heart broken again. Eventually, she wound up healing parts of me I didn't even know were broken. She gave me a reason to make plans, a reason to go outside. She brought me new firsts, and lots of laughs. Realizing my limitations as a "mom" made me explicitly realize my mom's limitations, and in order to forgive myself, I had to forgive her. It's powerful stuff. I absolutely believe little Smooch is one of the best and most healing things I've ever done. MY SMOOCH!

You've built a life around using art for social change. For someone who doesn't have a stage or a microphone — a family caregiver just trying to get through the week — what's the everyday version of what you do?

Talking about what you're going through with the people in your life and the people in your world. Come up with some friendly and easy ways to talk about what you're going through. I call these "canned responses" because I would always have little reusable and succinct answers to people's questions over the years because it's taxing to always be answering the same questions from people you may or may not know that well. What I learned is that our energy dictates how people receive what we tell them. So you can be really honest with people, and still make it palatable. You are allowed to tell people the truth about what is going on with you. You are allowed to say, "Well, I'm caring for my parent right now, and it's not easy, but I'm doing ok." You may even learn that they are going through the same thing. That's the real magic — human connection is the magic. And comedy is the fairy dust!

You do not have to go through this alone.

R

Rachel Austin

Actor · Writer · Founder, Love Labor Project · 18-Year Family Caregiver

Rachel Austin is an actor, writer, maker of art, who spent her career in arts education and nonprofit arts leadership. She began her caregiving journey at 16 years old, and was a caregiver for her mother until her mid-30's. In that time, she made a solo performance piece about her experience, which led to the founding of a nonprofit called Love Labor Project that supported other millennial caregivers across the country.

Rachel is originally from Dallas, lived in Minneapolis for almost two decades, and since her mom passed away a few years ago, has been living in LA, where she performs improv and continues to make work about grief, transformation, and resilience — always with a side of comedy.

Connect With Rachel

TikTok: @realrachelaustin

Instagram: @therealrachelaustin