Colby McCaskill won the NPR College Podcast Challenge by creating a podcast that addresses aging, dementia, and death through conversations with his grandparents. The project helped him confront his fears about these topics.
Key points
Colby McCaskill won the NPR College Podcast Challenge
Podcast discusses aging, dementia, and death
Kathy McCaskill uses coloring to help with dementia
Coloring calms anxiety and stimulates cognition
Mentioned in this story
Colby McCaskillKathy McCaskillDick McCaskillNPR
Colby McCaskill with his grandparents
Colby McCaskill (right) is the grand prize winner of the NPR College Podcast Challenge. Hisentry features his grandparents Kathy and Dick McCaskill (left) and discusses her dementia, something Colby had been scared to confront.
Matthew Coughlin for NPR
Matthew Coughlin for NPR
PENSACOLA, Fla. — At the kitchen table at their rental condo in Florida, Dick and Kathy McCaskill were working on coloring in an elaborate star, one of the few unfinished designs in the adult coloring book they've been working on.
"We love to do this," said Kathy, 77, laughing as she picked up a dark blue colored pencil. "I married a blue girl," Dick, 76, said. Coloring helps Kathy with her dementia, calming her anxiety and helping stimulate cognition.
Their grandson, Colby McCaskill, was visiting from New York, where he's finishing up his senior year at Fordham University. He grabbed a gold colored pencil and joined them. "How long have you been working on this coloring book?" he asked his grandmother. "A lot of time," she said, laughing. "I love doing it."
This is not what past visits used to look like, when his grandparents would color with him. Now, his grandparents are aging and changing. Caregiving roles are shifting. When Colby was growing up, his Papa worked as a healthcare executive and his Grammy was a teacher. They were always adventuring and telling stories — about 100-mile bike rides and skiing double black diamonds. Now they live one day at a time, navigating cancer and dementia. Colby, who recently turned 21, has struggled to square this new reality.
To deal with all those feelings, Colby made what he calls an audio letter to his grandfather. Dear Papa, the epistolary begins, "It's hard to admit because it feels like there's no solution, but I really wish you and Grammy weren't growing so old."
Q&A
What topics does Colby McCaskill's podcast cover?
Colby McCaskill's podcast covers aging, dementia, and death, focusing on conversations with his grandparents.
How did coloring help Kathy McCaskill with her dementia?
Coloring helps Kathy McCaskill by calming her anxiety and stimulating her cognition.
What is the NPR College Podcast Challenge?
The NPR College Podcast Challenge is a competition that encourages college students to create engaging podcasts on various topics.
What age are Dick and Kathy McCaskill?
Dick McCaskill is 76 years old and Kathy McCaskill is 77 years old.
The resulting podcast is the grand prize winner of this year's NPR College Podcast Challenge. NPR judges found the episode stood out from hundreds of other entries for its intimacy and vulnerability as it tells the story of a family learning to talk about hard things.
"Being with my grandparents is like a warm hug," Colby McCaskill said after winning. "[The podcast] was an opportunity to get my thoughts down and to make it clear: This is what I'm thinking and this is how I'm feeling and I want you to know this."
Capturing the subtle slip into dementia
Colby McCaskill and his grandparents Kathy and Dick McCaskill color an elaborate star mandala in an adult coloring book. Coloring helps Kathy with her dementia.
Colby McCaskill and his grandparents Kathy and Dick McCaskill color an elaborate star mandala in an adult coloring book. Coloring helps Kathy with her dementia.
Matthew Coughlin for NPR
Matthew Coughlin for NPR
In the podcast, Colby weaves scenes from a past visit with his grandparents with interviews and personal reflections. He doesn't skirt the reality of what's happening to his grandmother: that like millions of Americans with dementia, she's losing her memory. She struggles to remember names, her age and how to do basic tasks.
Here's part of the letter:
"I'm sure you know out of everyone how her dementia has been progressing. How she can't remember my name or her age," Colby says in the podcast. "I am, let's see," Kathy responds. "I think right now, I am like … I'm like … 47 years old, that's how old."
At another point, Colby asks his Grammy to describe what's happening. "Now, I started to say something, and then I can't remember," Kathy tells Colby. "But it is a little scary, honey, that when I walk in, and I'm going to do something, and then I can't remember what I was supposed to start talking about."
Dick McCaskill has lived this reality with his wife for the past several years, but seeing it through the lens of his grandson felt different. "I've listened to [the podcast] four or five times, and it brings tears every time I hear it," he said, while wiping tears from his cheeks.
He and his wife have just finished listening to it again, and they held hands while sitting with Colby on their screened-in porch overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway in the Florida Panhandle.
Colby McCaskill’s winning podcast took the form of a letter to his grandfather in which he finally found a way to share his worries about his grandmother’s health.
Colby McCaskill's winning podcast took the form of a letter to his grandfather in which he finally found a way to share his worries about his grandmother's health.
Matthew Coughlin for NPR
Matthew Coughlin for NPR
"As people look at themselves day to day, it's hard to see the big changes." He looked over at Colby, who was a bit apprehensive to hear what his grandparents thought of his openness. "It's more poignant that you can see things that we don't."
Things like Kathy's dementia.
Even though he and Kathy live each day with the progressing condition, like a lot of people, they weren't quite ready to admit it was happening. But in Colby's podcast, their grandson uses the word dementia clearly and often. He's unafraid to name it.
"Hearing the word," said Dick, referring to dementia, "it's sort of like a cold cup of water thrown in your face. And you realize, well, it's a fact. That's what we're dealing with."
An enduring love story of patience and faith
Kathy and Dick McCaskill hold hands.
Kathy and Dick McCaskill hold hands.Matthew Coughlin for NPR
Matthew Coughlin for NPR
What they're dealing with, it's been hard. Dick described how Kathy often struggles with basic tasks, such as knowing how to turn on the electric toothbrush but not knowing how to turn it off. Or turning the water on but forgetting to turn it off.
"That used to drive me crazy," Dick said with a laugh. "I would say my daily prayer is 'Lord, give me more patience.'"
In addition to patience, the experience has taught him acceptance and contentment, and it's solidified and strengthened his faith and hers.
"The Lord knows it all," said Kathy, a phrase she repeats often, which seems to calm her. Dick responded, "Yes darling. That's right. Healthy, happy and wise."
Colby captured this enduring connection and love in his winning podcast.
"I would have thought this kind of change would emotionally isolate you from her," he says in the podcast. Dick responds to Colby, "Yeah, but truly it's getting, on many levels, better and sweeter." He turns to his grandmother, to ask her the same thing. She responds, "My precious husband, you know, he'll stop and he'll wait and he will say, well, what were you talking about a minute ago? And he helps me bring it back to me."
Their decades-long love just looks different today.
Talking about hard things
Colby, Kathy and Dick McCaskill look out over the water at their rental condo in Pensacola, Fla.
Colby, Kathy and Dick McCaskill look out over the water at their rental condo in Pensacola, Fla.
Matthew Coughlin for NPR
Matthew Coughlin for NPR
Colby said he used the podcast as a way to start difficult conversations he was too afraid to have face-to-face. Conversations about aging, change and death. Before the recording, he'd never talked with his grandparents about dementia or his grandmother's health or their changing family dynamics.
"I was a little scared to talk about it," he said. "If there's no medical solution for it, then what would talking about it do? It would just make us all more sad." Dick conceded that there was some avoidance on his side, too. He didn't want to burden his grandson, who is nearly 50 years younger and living a very different life as he prepares to graduate from college, on the cusp of his adult life.
But the podcast cracked that open. The family has used it as a jumping off point to talk about dying and how things are changing and what they need to do as a family to stay connected. And in talking about it, it's made Colby feel less scared about the future.
"The ideal outcome was that I get to tell my grandparents how I feel," said Colby. "And they listen and they get to tell me how they feel, and I listen. And I think that happened."
