Fun With Relatives - kind of long

[Norse]

I have been struggling with an issue over the past week and DP suggested seeking advice from someone not close to my family, in other words, the unbiased TE community. To go into all the details would involve a book, so I'll try to condense:

My only living grandparent, my 87 year old grandma, bless her stubborn, opinionated heart, is loveable and fun but we have to try to ignore her need to always be right, her guilt trips if you do not agree with her and the fact that she believes that her children have never and can never, ever do anything wrong. We lost my dad (who was her favorite child, and my aunt knows this) within the past year - so we're all dealing with that upset (and the guilt trips that we don't stop by and visit her frequently enough...) and her daughter lives half the country away and for bizarre reasons hardly visits and does not have grandma down (aunt's partner does not like grandma, but um.. aunty, the house is half yours). Even though this upsets grandma, she is willing to make excuses for daughter and continues to believe daughter is a saint who can do no wrong.

Aunt lives in neighboring state from my sis, who gave birth to multiples about 10 years ago. At the time, my family lamented, and still does, that we live so far away and can't help her and her kids as much as we could if they didn't live at the end of the country. Aunt, at the time of birth said, "hey, no that's great she lives in bum-blankety-blank cause I am close and can visit often and help!" Long story short, aunt has only been down a few times. My aunt, bless her heart, does not like to deal with the difficult things in life -multiples are not 24 hours of fun, which she quickly learned and my sis and bro in law are not the happiest of couples - so, aunty has not done much.

Recently, out of the blue - and likely b/c aunt was complaining to grandma- grandma proclaimed that "aunt has done everything she possibly can to help my sis and the kids" and then demanded that we (mom, me, brother....) agree. Um... we didn't. She has since sent me a letter saying, basically, my comments (not agreeing with her) were hurtful to her "especially after everything aunty did for us kids and what has our other aunt done?" Two things here, 1, apparently what aunty did for us as kids absolves her from anything later in life and 2, "other" aunt is one of several aunts and uncles, but the only other childless aunt, lives completely across the country, has more than twice as many nieces and nephs as grandma's daughter and is my mom's only living sister and my mom and I are quite close to her - I believe other aunty and grandma resent this.

So, I am struggling with how to respond to grandma. I can't let it go unspoken on the one hand, on the other, she's 87, I am never going to change her opinions and I don't want some rift the last few years of her life (she holds a grudge). I can't call because she will not listen. This is well known in my family. I have been working on a response letter but torn about it and trying to keep the tone perfectly balanced is trying. Grandma is supposed to come up to our place a few weeks from now, but letting it fester that long is also not good. Also, with a sit down chat, she doesn't listen very well - hears what she wants to hear. I've got the response letter about as good as I can get it, but knowing grandma this may very well cause her to say "I am not coming up to your place later this month, you hurt me." Logic does not work very well on grandma, it just doesn't. What to do?