They live 90 minutes driving distance from my 94 year old grandmother and were supposed to spend Thanksgiving with her and my family. They haven’t seen her since the last time we were there, and she lost one of her children (my mother) in May. They made other plans.
We live 3 1/2 hours from her by plane. We visited in July, we are going for Thanksgiving, and we might actually return for a few days in January. It’s expensive, a pain in the ass, etc etc to do it, but she still lives independently (she’s in a 55+ community, but in independent living housing). My older brother has some lame excuse for why she is toxic, but she didn’t actually speak to me from 12-24 and I can get past it. She’s not actually toxic, but she was certainly the queen of backhanded compliments until she was 80/85. She treated my older brother like a king until he moved thousands of miles away without telling her years ago. He was then offended when she returned the Christmas gifts he sent that year to “sender” without opening them.
They are coming to see her on a different day when my family is there, so it genuinely is them and not her. And my SIL lied directly to me saying that they were hosting at their house and my grandmother was certainly welcome (but she didn’t think my grandmother would be up for it). My brother unintentionally busted her because I asked him to call and invite grandma directly.
So yeah, jerk and shrew.