Being alive is an alienating experience: we’re stuck in our own heads, separated from the people around us by a web of anxieties, fears and self-involvement. Fundamentally, what human beings crave is connection. Sometimes we find that connection in relationships. Sometimes we find it in the shared experience of creating and appreciating art. Sometimes we find it by getting looped into the group text message of a family organising thanksgiving. This is what happened to Jamal Hinton.
You might recall this story from last year. Jamal somehow ended up in the group chat of a family that was not his and was nonetheless invited to Thanksgiving dinner, because “that’s what grandmas do“.
https://twitter.com/RonaldDoee/status/798614847063814148?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pedestrian.tv%2Fnews%2Frandom-grandma-comes-through-on-thanksgiving-meal-after-invite-mix-up%2F
Nearly everything that happens on the internet is either depressing garbage or a viral stunt done by PR companies so, honestly, if that story didn’t and doesn’t warm the cockles of your heart: I cannot understand you and your cold reptilian brain.
https://twitter.com/RonaldDoee/status/801944742087061509
It gets even bloody better though: IT HAPPENED AGAIN. Not to say that Hinton was invited to another strange grandmother’s house, but that he went back to Wanda Dench‘s home this year.
2016-2017 thanksgiving pic.twitter.com/CpIgr9KapA
— Jamal Hinton (@Jamalhinton12) November 24, 2017
Dench told the Arizona Republic that they’ve kept in contact since last Thanksgiving, speaking about once a week, and that they planned to meet up again about a month before the holiday. Hinton, lovely young man that he is, brought his girlfriend and also a pumpkin pie – which I believe to be some sort of seasonal North American delicacy. Dench says it was bloody grouse (not her exact words):
It was really nice having everybody here. We got to laugh about last year and reminisce about how it all blew up on our phone and how I had to change my number. We had a laugh and a good time.
It’s a bloody Thanksgiving miracle (I don’t know if that’s a thing).
