It's a warm summer evening and I'm eating fish fingers with my great grandmother while You've Been Framed plays in the background. We laugh so hard we begin to choke. My mum turns the telly off and we both boo at her. She picks me up. 'Say goodbye to grandma!' She says. 'See you later, alligator!' I chortle. 'In a while, crocodile.' Grandma smiles.

I was five years old.

It's a bright spring afternoon and grandma cackles as I spin around the conservatory on her wheelchair until mum tells me to get down out of fear of something breaking. I turn with meticulously rehearsed puppy dog eyes to grandma who smiles, winks, and pulls out a box of dominoes. I spend the next hour making a trail of the colourful bricks that coils around the room. Grandma beams with pride as I topple the first one. Mum tells me to tidy up the fallen dominoes and say goodbye to grandma. 'See you later, alligator!' I say with a grin. 'In a while, crocodile!' replies grandma with a knowing smile.

I was six years old.

It's a cold wet evening and I'm in the car with mum. She tells me that grandma had a nasty fall and is in hospital. She tells me grandma's going to be fine and I believe her. After all, it would take a lot more than a fall to falter grandma.

I was six and a half years old.

It's a cloying, heavy day and I'm in a stark white hospital visiting grandma. The doctor tells us that her leg has healed, but they're still frowning. I disregard it as doctors being too serious. When it's time to go, I turn to grandma. 'See you later, alligator!' I say with a smile. 'In a while, crocodile!' replies grandma. On the way home, mum tells me grandma has a problem with her brain that makes her forget things. Dementia, it's called. She needs to stay in a care home. I nod and smile absentmindedly. Grandma won't forget me; I'm her best friend.

I was seven years old.

It's a sunny afternoon and mum holds me as I sob. Grandma keeps asking where grandpa is. Mum says I'm not allowed to tell her he isn't coming back. Grandma keeps asking us where we're going. Mum says I'm to smile and say we're popping to the shops. I don't like lying but I don't like grandma being sad either. Some days when we visit, she isn't even awake. On others, she thinks she's in a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean. She doesn't even know dad's name anymore. Mum and dad give me the option to stop visiting her. I take it. I realise that the grandma I watched Poirot and ate biscuits with is never coming back. But even so, one thing remains, no matter what state she's in: 'See you later, alligator'.

'In a while, crocodile.'

I was 10 years old.

It's a cool evening in late spring and mum is driving me home. She turns to me and tells me that grandma's fallen ill. I shrug and say, 'That's alright, grandma's been ill before and she's fine'. The silence hurts my ears. Mum gently tells me that this time is different. I need to say goodbye. I stare straight ahead. I ask mum if she remembers how grandma used to keep hand-me-down toys for me to play with. She nods and asks if I remember how grandma used to watch In the Night Garden with me when I was little. I laugh and taste the salty kiss of a tear as I recount how she used to complain about the dog putting bruises on her legs, but still called him up onto her lap when she thought nobody was watching. We get to the house, both of us in tears. I walk to my bedroom and take an old photograph from the windowsill and trace her frozen smile with my finger. 'See you later, alligator', I whisper. I imagine her voice replying: 'In a while, crocodile!'

I was 11 years old.

It's a humid day and I'm sitting in grandma's room for the first time in a year. I see grandma lying unresponsive in bed, a husk of the spirited woman I once knew. I can see the sharp outline of her skull and trace the veins underneath her paper-thin skin. I sit there not knowing what to do. The silence is leaden. I force myself to look into her sunken face and I tell her I love her as I begin to sob. I have so many things to say, yet so little breath to do so. My mum looks over at my dad who takes me gently by the arm and leads me out of the room. As we reach the doorway, I manage to choke out the only words I can think of: 'See you later, alligator'. I'm met with silence. I feel crushed under the weight of finality.

I was still 11 years old but in that moment I grew up.

Grandma died a few days later. I was in the car on the way back from a music competition with my mum and uncles when I found out. I didn't cry, but my stomach overflowed with an emotion so potent it burned me from the inside: guilt. Guilt over not visiting enough. Guilt over being bored in the care home. Guilt over abandoning her when she most needed me. Guilt over lying to her. Guilt over being the last person she forgot. That last part stung the most. I suppose I was right in the end; she never did forget about me. That simple fact broke me.

She didn't need me there. I was a child. I still am. Grandma would've been mortified if I forced myself to watch her deteriorate. No child should ever have to go through that. I often wonder what she would think of me now. Would she disapprove of my short hair? Would she like my baking? What would she say if I told her that if I ever married, it would be to a woman? Would she be proud of me? Because of this, I try to live my life in a way that would make her proud, because if grandma, the matriarchal battle-axe she was, thought I was doing the right thing, no-one else could ever convince me otherwise.

Guilt and grief go hand in hand. One cannot be overcome without tackling the other beforehand. It creates a sickening paradox that's impossible to escape. I haven't overcome it and I don't think I ever will. Over time, the stabs of guilt become duller and less frequent. I am, however, thankful for the one moment of pure catharsis I've experienced in the years following her death: writing this piece.

I don't believe in an afterlife but I hope I'm proven wrong. The only thing I could wish for after death is to hear the reply I never got from grandma; the answer to the question that's been hanging in the air for years:

'In a while, crocodile.'

Click here for the joint runner-up paper by Tristan Bleak
Click here for the joint runner-up paper by Eve Campbell

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