Her dad died, and she can't stop laughing about it. Other caregivers know why.

Actress and comedian Alyssa Limperis' dad died of brain cancer 10 years ago. But she's still laughing about it.

She laughs to get through the pain. She was 24 at the time, and had pivoted from a life of waitressing and improv in New York City to moving back in with her parents in Massachusetts to care for her father.

"That's maybe my way of handling things that are hard or challenging," Limperis told USA TODAY. "It's always been the language that was familiar to me."

Limperis said she started performing her "No Bad Days" comedy special about a month after her dad died in 2015. She's been performing it live on and off for 10 years, and the special is available to stream on Peacock. She lives in Los Angeles now, but she performed her comedy special again recently at a fundraiser for a grief and hospice nonprofit near her hometown.

The Parmenter Foundation, an end-of-life and bereavement care organization, is exactly the kind of place Limperis said she wishes she had known about as a caregiver. The nonprofit has grants for other nonprofit organizations that deliver bereavement programs and palliative care, offers grief support for college students and one-on-one social worker support.

"If there are resources available, go grab them. Take all the help you can get and find people who are going through the same thing. I think that would make it feel a lot less lonely," Limperis said. Then she added, laughing, "Or, write a 60-minute solo show and perform it for the better half of your life."

'We're all looking for levity.'

It might sound surprising to some, but many people find grief and laughter go hand in hand.

A 2022 study from the University of Montana found that bereaved individuals find deeper connections and build trust with others through humor, and sometimes joke in a similar manner as their deceased loved one as a way to honor them. That's true for Limperis, who looks back fondly on memories of doing sketch comedy shows with her dad as a child.

"We would put on little plays at Christmas with the family around," she said. "I have VHS videos of me impersonating my mom when I was probably like 10. So, I really loved that and did it all the time. My dad was so funny, so I definitely always wanted to pursue comedy and acting."

Every time she performs now, she said, it feels like she's getting a chance to check in with her dad.

Another study published in 2022 in the OMEGA Journal of Death and Dying found that humor is both a common grief trigger and a common coping mechanism for managing grief. Humor plays a vital role in helping older adults, especially, cope with aging and bereavement, according to new research.

"Humor isn’t just light relief − it’s a coping mechanism, a social glue and, for some, even a protective mask on what they described as their 'dark days,'" Heather Heap, lead author on the 2026 study from Aberystwyth University in the U.K., said in a recent news release.

Angela Crocker, executive director of The Parmenter Foundation, said caregivers often talk about gravitating toward dark humor and "finding light and laughter even in really dark times."

"I think we're all looking for that in our society in general," Crocker said.

Grief, heartbreak: 'That stuff lives in you...it's good to get it out.'

Limperis said caring for her dad was "the most beautiful, horrible year." In her mid-20s at the time, she didn't know many other people who had lost a parent. Caring for her father, and supporting her grieving mother, felt like a lot to bear.

"There was this feeling of, 'We have to save my dad.' And I had a lot of dreams after he died that he was dying and I couldn't save him. So, clearly that was something that I definitely struggled with," she said. "Now that I'm older and further away from it, I know. Like, there was nothing we could have done."

Limperis doesn't think she's unique in finding humor in the darkness. "It's just human," she said. There was a heaviness "constantly in the house" while her dad was sick.

"It was like this massive weight, that we were all almost holding our breath all the time," she said. "In a way, laughter was way more necessary, and happened a lot."

Other people have shared with her how much her story and comedy have resonated with them and their own losses. She said she's glad she can provide a space for people to find community in their grief, to "remember, feel (and) laugh."

"That stuff lives in you," she said. "So if you're not getting it out, you're carrying it and you're holding it. So it's good to get it out."

A decade after she performed her show for the first time, Limperis said she's finding new parts of herself that are healed and other parts that are grieving now in different ways. But performing is still, and will always be, a way for her to connect with her father.

"I'm really grateful for the show," she said. "When I started doing it, it really was a way to keep hanging out with my dad, and I really felt that way backstage. I would just be, like, 'Alright, dad, we're going out there and we're doing this together.' And I wonder if this show has been his way of taking care of me through these years, and checking on me."

Madeline Mitchell's role covering women and the caregiving economy at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.

Reach Madeline at [email protected] and @maddiemitch_ on X.