My right lower abdomen

As we both grew older, and I became somewhat literate in behavioral health, I quickly diagnosed my mother with hypochondria—lovingly as I could, feeling empathy not for any pain she experienced, but for the phantom threats in her mind, which I will argue trace back to a broken, unexercised, or at least idle heart. Worry seeps into her like a gas leak, and there’s usually a muffled explosion at the end. Then she moves on to another part of her body. Over the years, the two of us have pondered at length both the mysterious causes and catastrophic implications of various feelings she’s felt up and down her body. Of course, I kept my diagnoses to myself.

She is older, much older, and what I easily dismissed ten or fifteen years ago as hypochondria now seems to take more resonance as something that might be real. I could be a better son and worry my heart away. This uncomfortable feeling is lodged inside me, perhaps a lesser companion feeling to something enormous inside her.