DS was born at the beginning of September. My paternal grandfather lives about 3.5 hours away by car. He is not especially old or infirm. He drives, has an energetic dog whom he walks daily (although not enough IMO but that’s another matter), he has a younger wife who still works and is in good health... basically he has nothing stopping him from coming to visit DS if he wanted to.
I probably haven’t seen him for two years. He and my father talk probably once per fortnight but they aren’t close. He was invited to my wedding in the summer (got the invite approx 6 months in advance - not especially short notice) and didn’t come ‘because his wife was working’. She works in a shop, it would have been easy to book the day off. I guessed it was likely due to not wanting to see other family members (somewhat complicated family history) but maybe he just couldn’t be bothered. I’ll admit that perhaps I could have been to visit in the past couple of years and I am at fault there but equally he has not been down here for at least ten years.
I happened to be with my dad the other day when he phoned and ended up having a very awkward stilted conversation with him. We have no common points of reference anymore. He asked when we would be bringing the baby up to see him and I just said we’d probably ‘do the rounds’ (we have other family members near him) once DS was old enough to travel the distance. AIBU to think that if he was that bothered he could get in the car or on the train and come down himself? On the one hand I feel bad because he is old and at some point will be gone but on the other hand, we really have no relationship and he is equally as much to blame for that.