A bit of a long one. Our dad has a degrenrative disease and finds movement difficult. He lives in a lovely sheltered flat with a warden and can take part in activities there but relies on someone to take him out (in a wheelchair) , shopping, do the cleaning etc. I do all of this because I live in the same town. I spend half a day every weekend and pop a night or two in the week. I work full time and have older teenage children.
My brother lives about two hours away and works part time . They have an older teenage child who has high functioning autism . In the past year they have been to visit our dad twice - for a couple hours each time when they were travelling past. I know their child takes a lot of time.
They are due to come on Monday to visit dad for Christmas. I have been today to do dad’s shopping, cleaning etc as usual and have booked a table at a restaurant for us all. I’ve messaged my brother to say we’ll meet them at the restaurant so they can go to dad, spend some time with him and then bring him to the restaurant. I know dad will really like to spend time with them but also, perhaps selfishly, thought it would save me doing it. I’ve done all the standard stuff as usual so they can just spend time with them.
they’ve now said they can’t pick up dad and will meet us at the restaurant becuase their child won’t cope at the flat. I’m annoyed as this will disappoint dad but is also the only thing I’ve asked them to do all year for him. It would, selfishly, be one thing I don’t have to do for dad and give us a ‘day off’. But maybe I’m being really unreasonable because thier child won’t be able to cope going to dad’s flat. Would be interested to hear other people’s views (but recognise I can’t change anything and they’re not going to do it).