How do I mend fences with my grandson’s mother?

I've been debating writing this for some time now and now I've now finally reached the end of my own ability to try to solve the problem alone. So, here i am writing this in hopes that maybe someone can help me untangle the Godawful mess that I've so stupidly made for myself

I'm going try to be as blunt and honest as I can about the mistakes I've made in this situation because unless you know the true scope of the issue there's no way any advice given to me here will be useful. I'm well aware that what I've done reflects badly on me and my family and I fully acknowledge that what I did was wrong and utterly beyond the pale. It was unacceptable and inexcusable but I can't change what I did. All I can do is move forward and try to do better.

I have 3 children. One boy and two girls. My eldest 23/m was always closest to me. I had him when I was quite young and for the first 4 years of his life it was just the two of us. Eventually I met my current husband and my girls came along in due course after we married. My son tragically passed in a car accident on his 23rd birthday. He'd been out with some friends drinking to celebrate and at the end of the evening when the bar closed he foolishly got behind the wheel of his car and then tried to drive home. He never made it, because a mile or so from our home he wrapped his car around a telephone pole going 80. My precious baby boy was killed on impact. I was devastated by the loss. I can’t possibly describe the depths of my suffering. Mothers aren’t supposed to have favorites... but The honest truth is that I did and it was my son and when I lost my him it felt like half my heart died with him. About two weeks after his death I was contacted over social media by a young woman claiming that my son was the father of her unborn child.

At first I was excited. The baby would be a part of my son. A piece of him still alive....but I was also confused because my son didn’t have a girlfriend that he ever told me about before his passing. He was a good kid. Smart, motivated, respectful and churchgoing. He told me everything..but he never said a word about this girl. It bothered me. Something didn’t feel right so I decided to do a little investigating about the girl and the more I looked into her life the less I liked what I saw. She was loud, foul mouthed and dressed poorly. She had no faith that I could tell from any of her online activities and even worse she came from a broken home. She wasn't the sort of person our family would normally ever associate themselves with and and after going though her IG and Social media thoroughly I honestly couldn’t imagine my son ever giving a girl like that the time of day much less being intimate with her and fathering her child. My husband and I are very financially comfortable and because of that I immediately suspected that this girl was just a golddigger trying to get a payday since my son could no longer defend himself or deny her claims. I was furious. I called her up and told her in no uncertain terms that I was wise to her scam and ( may God forgive me) that she and her bastard were no kin to me or my family and that as far as me and my family were concerned they needed to go back to whatever gutter they’d crawled out of and stay away from our family during our time of grief and that she should be ashamed of herself for attempting to prey on a bereaved family just to get money.

I was wrong to say those things. What I said was arrogant and stupid and I wish so much that I could go back in time and slap my self witless for even thinking such a thing about anybody much less saying it out loud but I can’t...and the damage was done regardless. It didn't end there. It should have. I wish that it had because if it had I might not be where I am now. Maybe she would have forgiven me.

About a week after that call I found out that the girl ( I’ll call her M) actually worked at the very bar my son was at the night of his accident. I was livid. I was grieving still and I became absolutely convinced that M was somehow involved in my son’s tragic death. That it was her fault he drove drunk that night somehow. It wasn’t. I know now that she wasn’t even working that night...but at the time I didnt care about truth—-i just wanted someone to blame for my pain that wasn’t my son.

I wanted to punish M for what i believed she’d done so I told anybody who would listen my crackpot theory and as i intended word got around quickly. It’s a very small town and my family is very very well known in our community. The result was that my family’s friends and associates weren’t kind to M. I wasn’t kind to M either, and to my shame i admit that I harassed her. I made it my mission to make her life as uncomfortable as I could. I even sunk so low that I convinced her OBGYN to
Drop her as a patient. I said awful things to her when I saw her and about her behind her back. I am so, so ashamed of how I behaved. I took my grief for my son out on M and others followed my lead and did the same. Eventually M had my grandson and when I checked her facebook to see if I could guess who the baby’s real father was my blood ran cold.

M’s precious baby looked exactly like my son did when he was a baby. Identical. Right down to his crooked little pinky finger and fuzzy hair. I knew I had made a terrible mistake in that moment, and that I had to somehow mend fences with M so I could see my baby but before I could really wrap my head around the situation M packed up my newborn grandson and moved out of state. She cut off her phone and left no forwarding address. I’m fortunate that she didn’t delete her social media as well.

Not long after she left my fears were confirmed for sure. There was a new DNA match on a genealogy site I use for my hobby and M’s son was without a doubt my grandchild.

I was devastated. I knew then that I had made the worst mistake of my life and I immediately sent M a message on the site and asked her to contact me ASAP. To my relief she did and once I had her on the phone I tried my best to apologize for what I’d said and what I’d done to her and then I begged her for the chance to be a grandmother to my grandson.

To my horror, in response to my pain and apology M only laughed at me and outright refused, saying that she and ‘her bastard’ are quite happy in their gutter and that tbey didnt need us. M told me point blank that my family and I would see the baby over her dead body and that she hopes that it eats me alive for the rest of my life to know that there’s a piece of my son still alive...but that I will never ever meet him.

The vindictive cruelty of it took my breath away and when I said as much M’s response was “Do you like it? I learned it from you.” And the she just...hung up on me. I called a hundred times but all my calls went to voicemail and the next day the number didn’t work anymore. My heart shattered into a million pieces. The worst of it is that M is right. She did learn it from me. I treated her so cruelly for no good reason at all. God offered me a precious gift and instead of accepting it gratefully I was prideful and arrogant and awful to this poor girl that I didn’t even know. All because I thought she was ‘beneath’ my family. I was wrong. I was so wrong and now I’m paying the price for it.

Ever since that day I’ve been doing anything and everything I can think of to try and convince M to let me see my grandson. I hired someone to find out her address and I’ve sent them both gifts and cards and money but no matter what sent it always gets returned. Even the money. I know she’s a single mother and that money is an issue for her but M flat out refuses to let us help her. She’d rather raise my grandson in abject poverty than accept anything from me or my family. I just want to make amends and see to it that my grandson has a good life but M won’t give so much as an inch. She’s denying my grandson so many opportunities purely out of spite and nothing I do seems to help. If anything it just makes her more angry. My grandson is all I have left of my son, how can I mend this relationship with M so that I can be a part of his life?

I’ve accepted that what I did to M was wrong. I know that I’ve made terrible choices but knowing that my grandson is out there in need and living in an unsafe environment when he doesn’t need to and that he has no idea how precious he is to our family is killing me inside. I feel like I’ve betrayed my son’s memory by allowing his child to go without ...all in the name of my own pride. Please. Help me fix this because I’ve run out of ideas entirely.