Cancer means 9th-annual dinner will look different for Thanksgiving Grandma and the stranger she once texted who’s now family
By Graham Hurley and Chris Boyette, CNN
(CNN) — Despite a breast cancer diagnosis, Thanksgiving Grandma and the young man she met nearly a decade ago via an accidental text will continue their holiday tradition today for the ninth year in a row.
But Wanda Dench’s annual gathering with Jamal Hinton will look a little different.
“I just recently finished up with chemotherapy, so I’m not 100% yet,” Dench told CNN’s Jim Acosta on Thursday morning. “And I live about two hours away from where Jamal lives. And so we decided that this year would be best for my health if I stayed at home.”
“We will FaceTime with each other,” Dench continued. “I was looking so forward to meeting his family and having turkey with everybody, but we have to accept things the way they are, and I’m sure next year is going to be so much better.”
The tradition began when Dench, thinking she was texting one of her six grandchildren, instead mistakenly texted Hinton, who was then a teenager in the middle of a class. The unlikely pair from Arizona since then has fostered delight across the country and beyond, especially around America’s holiday devoted to gratitude.
From an accident to a cherished tradition
When Hinton got Dench’s errant text back in 2016, he thought maybe his own grandmother had gotten a new phone number, so he texted Dench back – and asked her for a photo. Realizing quickly it wasn’t his grandma, Hinton jokingly texted back, asking if he could still grab a plate of Dench’s Thanksgiving meal.
“Of course you can,” she responded. “That’s what grandmas do … feed everyone!”
Surprised by her kindness, Hinton ran to social media and posted the exchange – and the invitation, which he ended up accepting, went viral.
As they’ve celebrated Thanksgivings over the years, Dench and Hinton have grown closer. Through good times and bad, they’ve let nothing get in the way of their cherished tradition.
“It’s not really a friendship. We’re more a family now,” Hinton told CNN on Thursday. “It means the world. We talk about anything. We go through everything together.”
Hinton stepped up in support, for instance, after Wanda’s husband Lonnie died in early 2020 of complications from Covid-19. And Dench has been a big part of Hinton’s life, welcoming his girlfriend into the family fold.
Hinton even went with Dench to get some body art, he told Acosta.
“Her first tattoo is a little bit smaller than my first one, but we’ve jumped through everything together, and I think that’s what really makes us family: that we’re not just together on Thanksgiving,” he said. “We kind of try to hang out anytime we can.”
‘It turned out to be something amazing’
Dench announced her breast cancer diagnosis in a social media post uploaded by Hinton in October after a CT scan for bronchitis revealed a lump in her breast. She soon got a mammogram that confirmed the cancer.
The diagnosis initially shocked her, Dench wrote, but perhaps like her long-ago misfired text, it has introduced her to “wonderful people” during her treatment.
“I’m 67 now, and breast cancer doesn’t run in my family, so I didn’t think that this was ever going to be an issue in my life. But it’s here, and I’m dealing with it,” Dench said Thursday. “It has been a journey and an awakening.”
For Hinton, the unexpected Thanksgiving tradition and friendship with Dench continues to mean a lot.
“Personally, I’ve always wanted to make friends with everyone. I always felt like any- and everyone could bring any type of joy into your life, and I’m glad that I actually reached out to Wanda when I did,” he said.
“Even though I was joking, it turned out to be something amazing.”
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