Bread and Butter

When I was 17 my family lived in a small run down farmhouse owned by my grandmother. My father had given up his job in Detroit to move us out of the city and out of the way of the race riots that were taking place. He and my uncle were going to build houses.
We lived on money my parents had saved. We had a garden and my parents even butchered a cow for meat. We didn't have extras, but we had a roof over our heads, food in our bellies and clothes on our backs. And we were a family. There was never a thought about who's fault it was that we weren't living in our beautiful house in Detroit anymore. Nor was I angry that I had to leave my friends, my boyfriend and the culture that I loved back in Detroit. Again, we were family and we dealt with things together.
We had gone through all the money my parents had saved so my parents got a loan to finish the house and sustain us for a while longer. The loan had been granted, but we had to wait for the reality of the money to be put into their account. And we waited. And waited. Pretty soon all we had left to eat was the meat from the butchered cow, old potatoes from the garden and green beans that Mom had canned. The beef was so tough that the only way it could be eaten was to put it in a pressure cooker. (My parents had butchered the cow after my uncle hit it in the head with a rock, killing her instantly. He was going to bury the cow, but my folks said they could use the meat. The two of them - my mom and dad - butchered the cow in the field where she died. It took them hours. They ended up working by flashlight. They had never done this before, so the meat wasn't like buying it from Kroger's.) I was SO sick of the meat, potatoes and beans I could have screamed!
Then my grandma walked into our house with a loaf of bread and some butter. I had a slice of bread with butter slathered on it. It tasted so good! To this day I have never tasted anything quite so wonderful as that bread and butter.