Your story resonates with me. My father just retired and out of almost nowhere said he's moving to the other side of the country. He'd worked further south of where I am, maintaining two residences, one an hour from me, the other 8-9hours from me, but in driving distance if push came to shove.
My kids are his only grandchildren. We had reconnected a decade long rift, because as he said, he found out I had had my first child and he didn't want his grandson to grow up not knowing him. Note the 'he decides' point, was relevant to my therapist and my therapy.
Sarcastically, if he doesn't want his grandsons to grow up not knowing him, why move accross country during retirement? See the hypocrisy in that? Oh I've shed tears and revisit old wounds.
It's tough being a person who has a parent that just doesn't seem to 'get it.' It is intellectually, 'their issue.'
For people like ourselves, with such a wound, it's a grieving process. A letting go of what could have been, 'should have been.'