My uncle (?m) is reaching out and I (20f) don’t know what to do.

I’m so that this is long and for the rambling but I feel like I gotta include some background. Also I’m sorry for the many times I used maternal and paternal, I honestly didn’t know how to word this as I’m just so confused right now.

I (20f) am not close to my father’s side of the family, my paternal grandparents and the older relatives are Jehovah witnesses. My paternal grandmother would often take me from my maternal grandmother under the assumption that I would simply be spending time with her. But she’d actually take me shopping for clothes so I could go with her, my maternal grandmother is religious but I’m unsure if she’s catholic or Christian, but she only found out after she took my older sister too and she told my maternal grandmother.

My maternal grandmother stopped contact and only resumed after a year. She never took me back but she never stopped talking about my family, especially my mother. My mother got my father kicked out of the church cause she wasn’t religious at all but she would later sign some of her rights away of me and my sister to my maternal grandmother. My father’s was removed because he had a history of drug and alcohol abuse and was arrested, he came to the USA when he was a child but I’m unaware if he got a greed card or not cause he was deported.

Now to my paternal uncle. I believe he was the only one I got along with, my paternal grandmother has a lot of money and owns a lot of houses in our town that she lets relatives live in. He lived in one of them, but almost a 30 minute drive away. Now the reason I say I believe is because I honestly don’t remember much as a child. Much I could remember was the church, visiting my father once in jail to which my maternal family had no idea, and just a bunch more stuff people don’t know I’m talking about.

My mother said I actually lived with him for a time, a couple months because my maternal grandmother was recovering from surgery and none of my maternal uncles was trusted cause usually they drank or smoke all day. she said I was around 8. Like what my maternal grandmother thought, I’d live with my paternal grandparents but they weren’t allowed to take me to their church, pull me out of my after school activities, or my phone away.

I don’t know too much about him as when I try to remember I just see his face. What I know comes from other people. He had a long history of mental illnesses and was on medication for it, when I got to live with him he apparently felt better and quit his medication cold turkey. He told no one of this. Then I wasn’t allowed to be around them anymore. My maternal side wanted nothing to do with them, even the money my father would send to me would go to an account my maternal grandmother opened up and told me. I still have no idea how they found out I was living with him.

Now, to present. I still live with my maternal grandmother as I take care of her for a couple weeks from another surgery. I received a letter to me from what would be my paternal uncle’s address and when I read it, it was of him apologizing for what he did in the past, he included a couple photos of us together. The house he lived in had lot of land and it looked like he owned horses and we were riding together. One photo included him doing my hair. I honestly don’t know how to feel like this, even to this day my maternal grandmother doesn’t allow my paternal side around, no matter the reason and makes me promise that I will not visit my father as she believes where he lives is unsafe.

Now I don’t know what to do cause I barely remember the guy. I don’t know his name, nothing of him but just how he looks. He doesn’t say anything about his medication or what he did. Just of how sorry he is and he misses me and misses his brother and how much I look like him. I know this sounds like such a small problem but I don’t know who to turn to as everyone in my family hates them and I don’t even know how to tell my friends or anyone.