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Nahanni: Hi, it’s Nahanni Rous, here with another episode of Can We Talk?, the podcast of the Jewish Women’s Archive, where gender, history and Jewish culture meet. 

First, a word from our sponsor, the University of San Francisco’s Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice. JSSJ’s graduate-level certificate program in JEDI—Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion—is more than an educational program; it’s a call to action to improve the future of every Jewish institution. Classes meet the moment with supportive learning that helps students navigate an evolving and challenging Jewish community landscape. Learn more and apply by January 12 for spring classes at USFCA.EDU/JEDI. 

Nahanni: Now, on to the show. This episode takes place partly in Israel—the interview was recorded before October 7.

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Clip: My mom and I have always had a very loving, very enmeshed, highly suffocating, dysfunctional relationship [audience laughs]. I see this resonates with some of you…

Nahanni: That’s actor and writer Iris Bahr in her one woman show called “See You Tomorrow.” It’s a poignant—and funny—account of Iris’s relationship with her mother, and how everything changed when her mother developed dementia and Iris became her primary caregiver.

Iris grew up partly in Israel, partly in America. In February 2021, about a year into the pandemic, she was living in Los Angeles, single-parenting her nine-year-old son. Her mother, Ruth, was 83, and lived alone in Tel Aviv. There were lockdowns, most people weren’t vaccinated yet, and Ruth was scared. Iris bridged the ten-hour time difference and called Ruth on video chat twice a day. Ruth kept up her habit of sending gifts.

Clip: My mom is the most generous human on the planet. She sends us a few packages a week. Usually appliances, always in twos, just in case. And so we were discussing the pair of toasters that had arrived that morning, and then suddenly my mom says, “It’s so funny that I remember my best friend’s last name: Kovo…Kovo…Kovo.” And I’m like, “Mom, you're acting weird, why wouldn’t you remember your best friend’s last name? You’ve known her for 83 years.” Then she kind of went like that and her eyes rolled a little bit, and she kind of held the phone out, and just kind of stared. And I was like, “Mom, did something get in your eye?” Nothing. “Mom, you’re freaking me out, did your blood pressure plummet? Can you hear me? What?” Immediately I know that something is very wrong.

Nahanni: Iris was watching her mother have a stroke, alone in her apartment on the other side of the world. She launched into a frenzy of action: calling her mom’s friends in Israel, asking them to call an ambulance, hoping her mom didn’t close the video chat. After an agonizing two hours, EMTs finally entered her mom’s apartment. Iris was at the other end of the video chat, trying to get their attention.

Clip: “Ah, EMT person, could you please come talk to me? This is her daughter, I need to tell you what happened.” So one EMT goes to do a neurological assessment on my mom, and the other EMT, this burly Israeli guy, takes the phone and he’s like [with Israeli accent], “Your mother had a stroke.” Yes, yes, she did. “We need to take her to the hospital.” Please, please, take her. “Well we can take her to the good hospital or the other hospital.” [audience laughs] “Well, why wouldn’t you just take her to the good hospital, why is the other hospital even an option? “Well, the good hospital is further away and this is an emergency. Also, because of Corona, the good hospital is jam-packed. You wait on a stretcher for eight hours in the parking lot. My cousin, Chilik, works in the cafeteria, and even he—”And I’m like, “Dude, I don’t need to know the minutiae, just please take her to the other hospital!” “OK!”  And so they get to the door and suddenly my mom says, “Tell Iris not to worry!” And the phone goes dark.

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Nahanni: Days later, Iris and her son were on a plane to Israel, moving halfway around the world so she could take care of her mother. Little did she know her mom would soon develop vascular dementia as a result of the stroke. Iris’s whole life was about to change.

This time on Can We Talk?, we’re speaking with Iris Bahr about caring for a parent with dementia and about creating art from personal tragedy. We’ll hear some more excerpts from Iris’s show throughout the interview.

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Nahanni: How quickly did you decide that you just had to go to Israel?

Iris: It was, like, 30 seconds.

Nahanni: Oh, ok. 

Iris: It was literally, like, I was like, Oh god, like my mom does not—She has some friends, but they’re also in their 80s. You know, my mom’s an only child. And I am an only child. I mean, my brother who was autistic passed away, but it was really, like, there was no support system.

And so I finally get to Israel and I'm there 24/7 and kind of rehabilitating my mom and deciding to just stay in Israel. And this is before I knew that dementia had set in.

Nahanni: Can you describe what it was like during Covid and having to go in and out of a hospital? Like that's…

Iris: Yes. Well, I had to usually sneak in and I would get—if a nurse called me—I'd get yelled at. And I wasn't vaccinated yet, and I was literally trying to hug my mom with two masks and those plastic shields. So I'm crushing my mom's face with this plastic shield [Nahanni laughs.] Do you know what I mean? Like, literally crushing it.

Clip: At the hospital I rush to my mom’s room and I hug her so hard I feel like she is going to break, but she’s not speaking and this feels odd to me…So I find a doctor, ’cause now I’m here and the doctors have to speak to me.

Nahanni: Iris spent nearly every waking hour with her mother at the hospital. Her son was with his father, Iris’s ex, who lives in Israel.

Clip: I am at the hospital twenty hours a day, from before my mom wakes up until they kick me out at night. I am feeding my mom, I am bathing my mom, I am wiping my mom’s ass, because I can’t wait for the orderlies to show up and do it. I am also dealing with a Yemenite woman in the bed next to my mom, who thinks I work there and wants me to wipe her ass. Now even though I have zero boundaries, I have some limits, and politely decline. Now, this woman has five children, who keep coming in with Tupperware boxes of food, and they are horrified to learn that I am an only child, and they get re-horrified every time they see me… [audience laughs] 

[With accent] “It’s just you? Nobody to help you?” “Ah, no.” “Like, only child, no brother and sisters?” “Nope, nope, just me.” “And your mother, where are her brothers and sisters?” “She’s also an only child.” “Waaaah!”

“And you live in Los Angeles?” “Yes.” “Do you know Yigal?” “Excuse me. Yigal, locksmith in Burbank”? “Um, nope.” “How ‘bout Lugasi? Pool?” “I don’t have a pool.” “Shimmy? Dirt?  He’s a gardener.” “I actually do know Shimmy…” “Wow, hee makirah et Shimmy” [she knows Shimmy]! Eizeh keta, wow! [sad voice] Only child, tragedy…” [audience laughs]

Iris: After three months of all this intense rehab, then they tell me, my mom has this dementia, 'cause I was like, Oh, she's confused, but it's not getting better, it's not getting better. And so that was a bigger shocker than the stroke, really. Because the stroke didn't affect my mom physically. I mean, I did have to rehabilitate her and feed her and do all that stuff. But that improved immensely. It was—it was the mental… she literally forgets moment to moment. And everyone's like, Oh, does she recognize you? I'm like, yes. So it's, you know, this kind of vascular dementia is confusing, 'cause it's very hard to wrap your head around what and why people remember certain things. 

And as I am with her and kind of heartbroken, I'm also constantly, like, trying to understand and decipher, and have this fascination with the human brain and our soul, and, you know, what maintains. Like she, you know, some of her personality is still there, but she has no context to anything. So it's almost like these rote responses. And I'm like, we are just our synapses here. You know? It's like we're really, like, you know, she would say stuff if even sometimes I try and talk to her just like we used to, 'cause I'm also engaged in a little bit of kind of denial and magical thinking, and I'll complain about something and her response will be the same response she gave me for twenty years. You know what I mean?

Nahanni: Can you give me an example? 

Iris: Um, well, if I bitch about my ex, you know [laughs] like it's been a source of a lot of pain and frustration over the, you know, the last decade. And she'll be like, “Oh, forget about it” or “Never mind about him” or “He's not worth your emotional well-being.” But then she'll think I have three children. Do you know what I mean? 

Nahanni: Mm-hmm.

Iris: Or she thinks we're living together. Like, so it's almost this call and response. Uh, so I'm like, oh, is she in there, is she not in there? Because she still has no idea what's going on in the rest of her life—you know, she has no idea she had a stroke, she had no idea she has dementia.

You know, I have my own form of dementia now when you're in this endless loop, 'cause our conversations for the last two and a half years have pretty much been identical. Like, you could literally copy-paste.

And so you almost forget. The memories embedded of what my mom used to be like are fading. And part of me is like, Okay, like, I don't mourn that 'cause I'm like, well what is it gonna help me to be like, oh my God, she used to be like this? Or, oh my God. You know what I mean? 

I think it doesn't serve me. I think certain people, you know, maybe love to reminisce or have these good memories, but for me it's not—I think it's different when you're dealing with someone with dementia, 'cause this is what you got now and if you keep harping on what might've been, I think it just puts you in a very frustrating place. Like, this is who my mom is now. I have to stop mourning the loss of who she was. And just take what I can get. 

Nahanni: Mm-hmm.

Iris: You know what I mean? And accept who she is now. It's very challenging. For me it's, it's really been, the journey has been like, how do I accept this so I don't—'cause I do feel like I'm losing my mind half the time. Because when you're dealing with someone with dementia, it's a one-sided experience.

Clip: She is confused, right, so I have to kind of re-teach her everything. That’s to be expected. Right, so every day I go over there and I read her the paper. And I tell her stuff about me, and her, and our family, and everything that’s going on. And we do this day in and day out. And the therapist says to me, “Whatever you do, don’t correct her. Like, if she gets something wrong, don’t correct her, she’ll get it when she gets it. Because sometimes it stresses them out when you correct them.”And I’m like, OK. But that’s challenging for me because a lot of the stuff that my mom believes to be true is annoying. Like the fact that she thinks she is 36 years old, and yet I’m 57. Or the fact that she is convinced we are in New Jersey. Now, my mom has zero affiliation with New Jersey. And I’m like, Mom, of all the places on Earth, why’d you have to stick us in Jersey? Couldn’t be Paris or Morocco? Now I have to improv with you that we’re in Weehawken? But I do it. I do it.

Iris: I talk about how all the memories I'm creating are now one-sided. You know, like, nothing is retained there and it can become a very isolating predicament. You're not getting any positive feedback. There's no acknowledgement. It's really just giving in a very pure sense. 

Nahanni: Emotionally and physically, caring for Ruth full-time was wearing Iris down. Here’s a clip from the show, where Ruth’s doctor tells Iris she has to take better care of herself.

Clip: “You are killing yourself. I see you here every day.” I was killing myself. I had not been eating or drinking. I had, like, infections in both my feet, with severe inflammation. I was having cardiac symptoms and chest pains. “You prepared for a sprint, but this is a marathon.” I’m like, yeah, I guess I did. I thought we’d come in here, do the rehab, and in a few months we’d be back to normal. This dementia thing came out of nowhere. He starts telling me about the oxygen mask, right, how you have to put it on yourself first before I can take care of my mother, and more importantly my son. And that only makes me cry more, because I haven’t seen my son in months.

Nahanni: So what is it like to, um, be taking care of your parent and your kid at the same time? 

Iris: It's challenging Nahanni. Uh, it's that sandwich generation. It's very, very hard. I mean, luckily my son is older now and is more self-sufficient. But it's also like, I wanna be there with my kid. 

Nahanni: Right. And what about emotionally too? Like being sort of torn between this life that is ending and this life that is at its beginning?

Iris: Yes. Well, I think it's, that's the one joy where you have to keep—you know, I think that Western society, we have a hard time with dying and aging and mortality and, you know, half the podcasts [are] about like, “hacking aging,” [Nahanni laughs]. You know, take this coenzyme, like neuroscientists, right? Like, that's the new zeitgeist, right? And I don't know if other cultures or societies, you know, have more of an acceptance of, like, this is—the body's deteriorating. It's not a great way to go, but this is how her life…you know what I mean? It's torturous, but this is it. 

Nahanni: Yeah.

Iris: And you have to kind of focus on okay, the cycle of life and focus on my son and find those moments of joy. And I think that was the best advice that I got from people is really kind of micro: find little things that bring you joy to get through the day. You know, I think that, 'cause it's like you really get into a dark place and you're like, I have to do something small. Whatever it is, you know what I mean? And it's not always successful, you know. You're never fully carefree. And I think that's what I was talking about, living life with grief, there's just always something there, but you have to accept that too. And I think that acceptance has been the hardest part of the journey for me. Um, it still feels as raw and fresh as it did two and a half years ago.

Nahanni: I think you said in your show that in some ways parenting your parent can be more meaningful than parenting your kid, because it's harder. 

Iris: You know, when you're parenting a child, there's joy, there's fruits of your labor, there's feedback—you're, like, watering a plant. But I think what I mean is that it really is giving in a very pure form…

Nahanni: …when you're taking care of your parent. 

Iris: Yeah. In this way in particular, I think, uh, with people, with, you know, with dementia or Alzheimer's, it's when there really is no… 'cause, you know, look, I'm not saying we do something for the acknowledgement, but the acknowledgement keeps us going.

Nahanni: Of course.

Nahanni: Ruth was released from rehab after a few months. But being at home turned out to be even more difficult. She was more agitated. She would shout at Iris and at hired caregivers. After about a year of this, Iris finally decided to move her mom into a nursing home.

Clip: So I put my mom in this facility, and it’s a very emotional day, and the minute I leave, I’m like, How the fuck and I gonna pay for this shit? So I realize I have to rent out my mom’s apartment, which means I have to pack up my mom’s apartment. And if any of you have had to pack up a loved one’s home, it is not fun! 

Nahanni: Now that Ruth’s apartment is rented out and she’s in a home, Iris is grappling with where to base her own life—Israel or the States. 

Iris: You know, she needs me. When she talks to me, she's always crying, but she doesn't remember that I'm there. And it's such a tough decision, because I haven't been working. Like, there's no work for me in Israel.

And, I know my mom would not want me to be sacrificing my career and my livelihood. I know that, like, even when I come visit her, she's like, Get outta here. What are you doing here? But that doesn't really matter. I have to kind of make—you grapple with these decisions. Like, what do you do? You gotta make a living and survive. But how do I go far away? And she doesn't have anybody. Like, you know, my mind is just in this constant loop.

So it's really, it's that dance of self-care in general, I think, that caregivers experience and neglect. It’s a very hard dance, and I've never been one for healthy boundaries. I didn't even know what a boundary was until the therapist explained it to me. 

Nahanni: When did you start thinking about mining this experience for your standup, for a show?

Iris: Uh, I think it was, I mean, I was still knee-deep in it and I'm still knee- deep, but I was really like—this was when she was still in, you know, in rehab and, um, she was actually at home and we were going—I was going through a very, very hard time. And I was extremely, you know, uh, depressed, and crying a lot, and anxious, but still powering through. I think I've always done that, you know what I mean? I'm just kind of—“crying and doing” is my motto. 

Um, and then I was supposed to perform in Vancouver at a theater festival that I performed in in the past. You know, they were like, What do you wanna do? Do you wanna just do standup? And I said, Actually, I wanna write about this experience, because some meaning has to come out of this hellfire—like, you know, something outside of myself. I have to be able to share this experience, because I'm definitely not the only one going through it, even though it felt like that at the time.

And so I wrote it and I did it in Vancouver. And it was a very powerful, uh, experience. Um, and then I kept writing it, 'cause things kept, you know, evolving. And then I did it again in New York. There was something about it, when I did it in New York, that after every show people would come up and cry and hug me. And I was like, oh my God, I didn't realize that so many people were really going through this or even were about to, or even contemplating if they would have to. Because I think that a lot of times, caregivers feel like it's just all gloom and doom. You know, there's literally nothing uplifting about the condition. 

But there's something, there are some uplifting or inspiring things about the caregiving, things that I've experienced that other people have experienced– like, all of my resentment towards my mom dissipated once this happened… and you kind of look back at your history in a different way, and reframe your experience a little bit.

And so, when I was initially writing the show, when I was at the height, you know, the grief and the processing is a long process. And anyone who has gone through serious grief knows this. And so I think that, um, sometimes, when I created the show, it created a little bit of distance. You know, when you’re storytelling and creating and crafting, it does create a little distance between you and the event.

Nahanni: Has your mom seen your show? 

Iris: I showed her a little trailer.  My mom has a hard time kind of wrapping her head around concepts in general at this point, like I said, it's—she can have a conversation with you and make a complete sense, but have no idea, you know, she thinks she's 20, she thinks her parents are alive, which is also shocking to me, considering she spent her entire life without them.

You know what I mean? Like, there's just certain things about—like I said, like the brain, how the brain is wired and what happened and what shifts—that make no sense to me. Maybe it's the severe traumatic events. 'Cause she doesn't remember that my brother died either. So it's almost like the brain is like, okay, we're gonna take that trauma away. Uh, we're gonna make you anxious and depressed over other stuff, but that's gonna go away. And it's so odd to me, it’s so unclear what drawers have been closed and what opened and what's been rearranged. 

Nahanni: It strikes me as really beautiful and such a kind of honoring of your mother that while she's losing her memory and her understanding of her own life narrative, that you are constructing it, you're telling this story.

Iris: Yeah. I think that—I mean, I feel that when I do it, it's obviously so bittersweet. You know, again, it's like, that I wish she could’ve seen it. Or I wish she gets it. I wish she knows about it. You know what I mean?

Um, yeah, but again, you—this is at that point I just look outward and say, How is this helping others that can, uh, glean from it? You know, bearing witness to each other's stories.

Nahanni: Is it helping you? 

Iris: I think when I—you know, when people, uh, experience something emotional from the show, yeah. I mean, that's why I do what I do, you know? Uh, is it helping me cope with my mom's situation? I don't…I don't think so. I don't think it's making that easier. I don't think anything will make that easier.

But I think that you at least, you know, uh, you at least get something meaningful out of it for others. Some sort of relief or respite for others. There's something gratifying about being able to take your own story and universalize it. 

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OUTRO: That was actor and writer Iris Bahr, talking about her one-woman show, See You Tomorrow. A brief update from Iris, who says Baruch Hashem, her mother is OK, and thankfully, unaware of current events in Israel.

For more information about Iris’s show, visit irisbahr.com or find her on instagram @iris.bahr. She spells her name I-R-I-S B-A-H-R. 

Iris is also working on a documentary about how caregivers cope with the challenges of caring for family members with dementia.

Thank you for joining us for Can We Talk?, the podcast of the Jewish Women’s Archive. Our team includes Jen Richler and Judith Rosenbaum. Our theme music is by Girls In Trouble.

You’ll find Can We Talk? online at jwa.org/canwetalk, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

I’m Nahanni Rous, wishing all who celebrate a light-filled Hanukkah. Until next time.

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