Everyone at the table is laughing hysterically. The game Spoons has been a staple is our house for as long as I can remember. We play all the time, and it never gets old. Nothing brings my family closer than a game of lunging over a table and fighting for colorful plastic spoons.

A new round begins and everyone gets serious. We all have our poker faces on and the cards carousel around the table. We're all hyperfocused on each other's movements. I spy suspicious movement out of the corner of my eye and glance to my left at my mom's hands. She doesn't reach for the center, must have been a nervous twitch. Only, her hands keep twitching. No, not twitching but rather more like shaking.

It dawns on me how thin her hands have become. When was the last time I looked at her hands? I hold them every month when she gets her chemo shot, but I never actually look at them. She's lost weight since getting sick and her hair is thinner, but she has never really looked sick. She has just always looked like my mom. But now, looking at her hands, they don't look like hers.

My aunt across the table stealthily steals a spoon and then chaos ensues until everyone has one except me. I can't bring myself to move and my eyes shift up to meet her gaze. She is smiling and joking about me getting a P in the game. And for the first time I look at my mom and see her, but also someone who is sick.

How do you miss someone who isn't even gone yet?