Wanda Dench and Jamal Hinton are going on seven years strong with their unexpected Thanksgiving tradition!
In 2016, Dench texted her 24-year-old grandson to invite him over for Thanksgiving dinner unaware he had changed his phone number. The now 65-year-old grandmother unintentionally sent the invite over to Hinton, then 17 — with the two exchanging selfies to iron out the confusion.
“You not my grandma … can I still get a plate tho?” he asked, before she responded, “Of course you can. That’s what grandmas do … feed everyone.” From there, an annual tradition was born and Jamal has been joining their family to celebrate the holiday ever since.
This year, Hinton confirmed the unlikely friends would once again be celebrating together in a post to Instagram. “To answer all your questions, yes Thanksgiving year 7 is planned out!” he captioned a photo of the pair in front of a Cheesecake Factory restaurant. “See you guys Thursday!”
The friendship has been quite a journey for the pair, with Jamal by Wanda’s side in 2020 for her first Thanksgiving following the death of her husband Lonnie, who died from Covid-19 in April of that year.
They burned a candle alongside a photograph of Lonnie while they shared a casual meal together in photos shared online at the time.
“It’s going to be different, my first Thanksgiving without him,” Wanda told The New York Times. “My husband was always right behind me, telling me how proud he was of Jamal and me for what we’ve done.”
She went on to say her husband, whom she met when she was 20 and described it as love at first sight, was “always true to himself.”
“He was the person I wanted to be like,” she recalled.
“I’m just grateful that we are here, we are together,” Jamal said to the Times. “I don’t know what I would be doing for the holidays this year, last year or years before if I didn’t have Wanda in my life, so I’m just grateful.”
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