Weddingbee boards

My grandmother was unable to come to my wedding because of health and travel issues. She is 88 years old and lives in a semi-assisted living house in a small city in Saskatchewan. She is getting rather senile, it's hard to have conversations with her that don't start repeating after only a minute or two. Otherwise she is in pretty good health. She has never met my husband, and she keeps asking when he and I are going to come visit her. I am her favorite grandchild (because I'm the oldest) and I know it would mean a lot to her. 

Right now we have no plans to go and I keep evading the question. But I feel guilty about this because I know it's selfish. She is cranky and frankly rather annoying to be around, and the trip to see her would cost several thousand dollars (plane tickets alone are nearly $700 pp to fly from our city to the nearest big city to her, plus a 2 hour drive to where she lives, likely in the winter in tons of snow). Part of me wonders if she would remember meeting him if we did come. We could probably afford to go, but it's an awful lot of money to spend on a trip we are not really interested in. But then again, she's my only grandmother left and she probably won't live too much longer.

What do you all think? I really thought she would be able to come to the wedding and meet him, but that didn't happen. Should we try and make the trip? I feel ashamed to ask, but how can I get more excited about the prospect of going?

You should go see her.

Sometimes when people get older, it's a lot easier to handle in person. My grandparents could not come to my wedding, and they can't really hear when I try to speak to them on the phone, but in person we talk okay. They also live out of town and out of the way, and I've only seen them 2x in the last 18 months, but I kind of feel bad thinking every time I see them might be the last time. I think as I've gotten older (at least away from the teenage/ college-age) it's easier to relate to them, at least in my case.

My other grandmother died when DH and I had been dating 3 months and I was on vacation with him instead of seeing her. I regret it to this day that she never met him and that I didn't take making one last visit seriously. (Not that he would have come because we were so new to each other, but still I feel like I had my priorities messed up.)

Go see her unless you have no relationship with her and no desire to have a relationship or a memory of your adult life with her. I know for some people with family members that's the situation, and in that case my comment would not apply.

Go see her. Both my grandpa and my husband's grandpa's passed away before they were able to meet our special person, and we BOTH regret that we never got the chance to meet them. It is possible that having him there will change the dynamic and make her more pleasant. Maybe you could go with a mission - to tape record your grandma's memories of her childhood, or to complete your family tree. This might make it easier to motivate yourself to go. Think of what special memory might be lost forever when she is gone, and how those might be special to your new family.