“Her father called her ‘Little Tranquility’, and the name suited her excellently; for she seemed to

live in a happy world of her own, only venturing out to meet the few whom she trusted and
loved.” - Louisa May Alcott

If peace were a person, it’d be Beth March: a perfect embodiment of serenity. Not the
kind that resembles freedom from the world’s troubles, no, but one that musters a tender smile,
like those of the heralds of spring, and a pair of kind eyes, as bold yet warm as the sunlight
passing through the blinds on a melancholic Sunday morning. Beth is someone who would sip a
warm cup of tea in the midst of her three sisters’ thundering banter, weep inconsolably over her
injured dolls, and release a hefty, quiet sigh of frustration over playing the wrong key on the
piano. She’s not exempt from feeling the poisonous bite of anger and rage, but she’s always
been best at keeping it within her, and letting forgiveness and grace take the reins. Contrary to
her sisters’ aspirations for luxury and recognition, her dreams mostly consist of her family and
their interminable togetherness. She floats, leaving no trace behind – and yet waves of
wistfulness cascaded upon the unraveling of her death. Her memory, all over the place.

A character that often goes unnoticed, her presence only ever rattles in its own absence.
Beth March – dearly loved, ruefully missed. A master at sleepwalking, seemingly so alive with
her distant playing of the piano enveloping you ‘til you felt safe and solaced, her incessant
pleading for her sister’s poems, her fountain of gratitude for those who cared about her
fondness for music, and her loving-kindness toward others – a strength that became as fatal as
a flaw, leading to her death. Yet she’s there, completely withdrawn in the shadows, until
someone asks for her attending. A phantom, they say, haunting you even beyond her passing –
in her clothes, in Jo’s poems, in the muted echo of the piano sitting idly in the living room. Yet
she became the grounding force for those that were surrounded by her spirit: her sister, Jo, and
Mr. Lawrence especially; the very first person they run to when their worlds are in chaos, the
very arms they’d wish to have wrapped around their shoulders on their anguished days, their
only tether in this cruel, harsh world, and their embodied reminder that there are, indeed, still
beautiful things.

Albeit nudged in her sisters’ shadows often, there is a piece of her in each of them: her
tranquility, her grace, the entirety of her amiable disposition. ‘Beth was the best of us,’ Amy
says. Even on her deathbed, she mustered up the courage to be happy, not wanting to ‘trouble
anyone.’ She laid in a room, surrounded by her most valuable possessions and people, feeling
an odd sense of contentment. Indeed, it was a shrine, for everyone adored Beth, and went to
the greatest lengths just to secure the most beautiful ending for a dear angel’s odyssey. Beth
March’s life was uneventful, and her, unambitious; but her ephemeral existence was filled with
such admirable virtues and benevolence that not one of her sisters could ever perfectly
replicate. Her life is a reminder that fulfillment does not always flow from the outside-in, but
could go the other way around. A gratified life does not entail a possession of the world, but
rather, the world learning to possess a part of you upon your departure. Beth taught us that
somehow, that was enough.