“Thank you, Lord, for letting me live and see another day.”
This is the first thing that Brandee Evans whispers in her prayers every morning, and understandably so. The Memphis-born star is ultimately living out her dream as a working actress in Hollywood. While fans are awaiting the third season of STARZ’ gritty drama P-Valley in which Evans stars, she’s never left our screens for too long. After stints on BET’s Family Business and Hulu’s UnPrisoned, Evans became the center of a twisty cliffhanger in the third season finale of soapy legal drama Reasonable Doubt, which landed on Hulu earlier this month. It’s a recurring role that she says was originally slated for just three episodes, but expanded to seven over the duration of the season. It’s a great spot for any actress to be in.
And yet, no role is more gratifying than the one as caregiver for her mother Diana Harrington, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 2004 and Alzheimer’s shortly thereafter.
About 10 years after her diagnosis, Harrington suffered a bad fall that required care in a rehabilitation facility. Evans was on tour with Ledisi as a dancer/choreographer at the time and after visiting her mother, she knew it was time to make a change.
“She started to heal, but we realized she’s never going to walk again,” Evans tells ESSENCE exclusively. “She could barely walk already [due to the MS.] So now this fall took away the [ability to] walk, that’s when I realized I gotta do something, because mama can’t go back home by herself.”
This marked the beginning of Evans’ journey as a caregiver, a role that is held by over 63 million Americans nationwide, according to AARP. After a family meeting with her brothers and a GoFundMe campaign that amassed over $14,000 for care expenses, Evans moved Harrington to Los Angeles to live with her full time.
“In the beginning, my friends were helping me, because I didn’t know about caregivers,” Evans says. “ Like, I thought I was gonna take care of it by myself. I didn’t take into account, you got to go to an audition, you have to go do this and leave the house, and who’s gonna take care of mama?”
Evans relied on her community, noting that her best friend Sasha was “mama’s first chef.” Her setup has changed throughout the years, especially after landing P-Valley in 2018, which allowed her to build out a caregiving team. Currently, Evans, who says her mother’s caregiving bills are about $9,000 a month, is “playing it by ear” as she searches for another member for her team, but her LA village of friends and team member Miss Mary are all in when they can be, even to her surprise sometimes.
“I took a trip to Miami a couple weeks ago, and Miss Mary and I kind of got into it,” she says with a laugh. “I [was telling her] ‘Well, Mary, it’s okay if the timing is off. It’s not that big a deal. It’s my mama.’ She goes, ‘well, it’s my special patient.’ I stopped immediately. I love that she loves my mama that much, that she would argue me down about what’s best for my mother.”
With the holiday season in full swing, Evans says there are a few ways others can support caregivers and it all starts with paying attention. “It’s frustrating when we get that call that says, ‘if you need anything, let me know.’ We ain’t got time to let you know what we need, because we’re too busy being hands-on,” she says, firmly. “‘Do you need some groceries? I can bring that.’ Please just show up, because that’s what we need. And a lot of times, we don’t need your advice. We just want to be able to vent and just have a safe space.”
Now, Evans doesn’t always get it right. Caregiving is a labor of love and with her busy schedule, she sometimes feels guilty making that sacrifice of time in order to finance her mother’s care. “We beat ourselves up a lot,” she admits. “Right now, I’m thinking I could do more. I ran out of the house [today] like, “I haven’t even really seen mama today.” But I am running out of the door so I can care for her.”
That’s why Evans is adamant about devoting her free time to her mother. Whether it’s taking her mother out to dinner for “girl’s day” or bringing her mother to a finale screening for Reasonable Doubt, Harrington is never too far away from Evans in presence or in spirit, at the very least.
In fact, their bond is tighter than it’s ever been. When discussing the evolution of her relationship before and after caregiving, Evans shares that it hasn’t always been a yellow brick road. Her relationship with her mother was more fragmented as a teen through her early twenties, which was something she struggled to reconcile with when she first began caregiving. After a word of advice from beloved casting director Robi Reed, Evans decided to have a transparent conversation with her mother about forgiveness.
Her mother’s response nearly brings her to tears to this very day.
“I’ll never forget going in the room and getting on my knees and just talking to her one night,” Evans recalls. “It may have been a couple weeks after I got her, and I said, ‘Mommy, I forgive you for anything you said to me that hurt me growing up, and I’m sorry for anything that I said to you growing up. I’m here with you.’ And she said, ‘thank you for coming to get me [from that nursing home.’”
With the double diagnosis, the state of Harrington’s health can be tricky to navigate and understand. When her memory first became a noticeable issue, doctors weren’t sure if it was a result of MS or early onset dementia, leading to the Alzheimer’s diagnosis. And lately, Evans has been noticing some changes in her mother’s health: lost weight, shaking and the inability to chew her food. While she’s admirably forthcoming about these details, what causes Evans to shift from sunny to sobering is explaining how caregiving takes a toll on her emotionally. In a raw admission, she details the part of caregiving “that I don’t show online.”
“The hardest part is her not knowing me,” Evans begins as she recalls how she reacts when her mother thinks she’s someone else. “[I’ll say] ‘are you looking for Brandee? Let me call her.’ And then I’ll go get [the phone], and I’ll put it on speakerphone, and then I’ll go hide in another room. And from the other room, I’m like, ‘hey, mama! I’m running some errands, I’m gonna be back home in a minute.’”
“And so the hardest acting job I’ve ever done is at the house because I have to get into character. But then I go in the room and I cry—Oh, and I cry hard.”
As she thinks about future aspirations in her career (“I want to lead another series”), dating (“my mentality is on caring for my mother and I feel like if I’m growing myself to be a better person, then I’ll be ready for whoever’s gonna come) and beyond, Evans says that she pictures her mother by her side every step of the way. In fact, she can’t envision a life without her.
“I don’t know what my career is without my mother, because it blew up while I had my mother, which is crazy to me,” she says. “I want to do it all, and I want my mother right there with me along the way. I don’t know what life would be like without her.”
So, how does Evans continue to power forward? She relies on her sources of strength: her love for her mother, her village, God and her commitment to taking it one moment at a time.
“Take a moment and talk to your doctors and find the positive still,” Evans implores. “It’s just a diagnosis, y’all. It’s okay. You’re still present right now, and a lot of times we can be so engulfed in the disease and whatever’s happening to them that we aren’t enjoying it. I remind myself, if you’re getting tired, caregivers, late at night, remind yourself that it’s an honor. Just meet them where they are.”