Beholden, you sound really sweet. I would say to just let your grandson cultivate the relationship at his own pace and not be surprised or hurt if he just wants to keep the relationship in writing for right now.

I have somewhat of a strange adoption story. I was adopted at one month old, in 2009 I found out that my birth parents had been in my life for its entirety. They were close friends of the family who were having a "relationship on the side" (she was married, albeit in name only, and he was not.) She was 38 and already had 3 kids who were then around 9, 10, 12 years old. He was 46, never married, and had no idea she was pregnant. This was 1981, so she could have just had an abortion and never told a soul about it. But she chose to conceal her pregnancy until it became obvious, and stayed with a friend in another state until it was time to have me. Unfortunately, no one knew about any of this except for her and my parents for all these years. She only told her children, brothers, etc. when she was dying of cancer in '09. It has been very difficult for me, to say the least. I knew her and her kids + their extended family, my birth father, his sister, as "close friends of the family" my entire life. I had always wondered where I came from like any other adopted child, and here they were right under my nose all these years. And now they're all something more. I'm glad I was already in therapy when this news came to light. It's kind of made me feel conflicted...I'm still struggling with this duality of "two families".