This past week was very hard on me emotionally.

My beloved dog India, seems to have re-injured her left hind leg. She tore her cruciate ligament the end of July and, after not seeing improvement with restricted activity, underwent surgery the first week of October.

Being a holiday weekend, it took me a couple days to get her in to see the vet, leaving me with too many hours to ruminate on worst case scenarios.

And, like most people in the country, I have been rattled by the death of George Floyd. His last words, “I can’t breathe,” caught on a smart phone video, have haunted me as have images of the unrest that has followed.

I agree with many who have commented on the demonstrations, noting that they often punish the very small businesses that serve the local communities where George Floyd and other African Americans make their homes and that isn’t right, but I understand the RAGE.

My heart has been broken. How can it be repaired?

These events have happened as I have been working on getting my gas grill operational again.  It seems like a weird association, but both situations got me thinking about the frequent challenge of how to make things right.

When I had a friend attach a new propane tank to my Weber Spirit II on my back deck, I was looking forward to summertime grilling, a simple pleasure that I could exercise while social distancing. I couldn’t do this heavy-lifting myself and was very appreciative of the help.

A couple weeks later, when the temperature warmed, equipped with a full propane tank, a half-pound ground sirloin patty and blue cheese ready for the first grilling of the season, I opened the valve to start the flow of gas and heard a hissing sound. A few moments later, I smelled it.

Was something not connected right? Was the connector stripped?  What was wrong?

I had my handyman look at my problem when he came to re-caulk my kitchen sink.

First, he thought he could make the gas flow properly by repositioning the tank. That didn’t work. Or, it actually only worked once. If the tank was turned, only slightly, the hissing came back. Then he bought a longer hose and new adapter. They didn’t attach to the grill connector.

He made multiple trips to Home Depot and Menard’s. He had me take photos of the valve on my smart phone and send them to him when he was in that department. Wearing mask and gloves, he spent nearly an hour on his knees, wielding two pairs of pliers. Eventually, he got the assembly to work.

I don’t know exactly how India hurt her leg, how she re-injured it. I knew I had to deal with immediate and long-term issues. Thankfully, several friends helped me do research on what might address the problem and keep my spirits up.

I arranged for a dog walker to come over to carry her down the two flights of stairs from my condo unit to the street once a day for a couple weeks (a task I’m not comfortable with).

One friend brought up the issue of body configuration, pointing out that India, with short legs and wide girth, is not suited for running up and down stairs.  So, I planned on permanently reducing her regular food intake and welcomed suggestions on harnesses or fabric travel bags, so I could safely and confidently carry her up and down stairs myself.

Then came the recent killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis policeman. I was more than distraught.

It was just one example of abuse of power that has been on the rise since ignoring “rule of law” has become Standard Operating Procedure and “white grievance” has become the primary message the man in the White House uses to manipulate people.

Most any person who has seen the video of the incident knows it was grossly wrong. Under the threat of corona virus attacking each of our respiratory systems, the words, “I can’t breathe” is especially disturbing.

Though not on the streets protesting myself, I have felt connected to others by mutual OUTRAGE.

It’s been hard to believe that defiant anti-mask wearing protesters on state capitol steps, who may be putting people at risk with their behavior, are treated with kid gloves and police can barge into Breonna Taylor’s Louisville home with a no-knock warrant and so quickly begin firing their guns.

Some repairs only require a part to be replaced. Maybe some level of expertise is demanded for installation. That is obviously not the case for what happened last Monday in Minneapolis. Firing a cop and hiring a replacement, even one who would not exercise undue force on someone already handcuffed, will not solve the problem.

Collective will must be gathered and fortified to make things better. Even in the case of my grill repair, my handyman was committed to making things work correctly, even if this meant multiple store visits and taking extra time. In the case of my beloved pet’s long-term health, I have had to step back and look at her health, in general, not just curb her activity for two weeks.

Summoning our collective will and stepping back to have substantive, undoubtedly uncomfortable, discussions about race and justice needs to happen. Even though the direct consequences of racism only affect a fraction of our population, if we don’t treat everyone with respect and dignity, it devalues all our lives.

Accepting that you have to get to the root cause of a problem and garner the collective will in order to solve it is no small thing.