Confession: I am 30 years old, a self-proclaimed lover of all things literature, and I just read Little Women for the first time. Loving the movies so much, I thought I had a solid handle on the storyline. But diving into the book itself felt like being reintroduced to a group of friends that I thought I knew well, until I sat down and spent 500 pages with them!
Grief
This novel dives deep into grief and loss. The March family thinks they have known hardship. They are poor, poverty is hard. Father is away at war serving as a chaplain, with no idea when he will return. And then Father gets sick, Mother leaves to nurse him, and while she is gone Beth is stricken with scarlet fever. The girls are beside themselves and I just wept right along with them as Beth was fading. They felt scared and helpless, but they found solace in family and friendship and grew as they learned to comfort and mourn with each other.
“She doesn’t look like my Beth, and there’s nobody to help us bear it. Mother and Father both gone, and God seems so far away I can’t find Him.”
As the tears streamed fast down poor Jo’s cheeks, she stretched out her hand in a helpless sort of way, as if groping in the dark, and Laurie took it in his, whispering as well as he could with a lump in his throat, “I’m here. Hold on to me, Jo!”
She could not speak, but she did “hold on” and the warm grasp of the friendly human hand comforted her sore heart, and seemed to lead her nearer to the Divine arm which alone could uphold her in her trouble.
That lump in Laurie’s throat is something I have felt many times. Standing on the sidelines while the people you love are suffering is a uniquely painful experience. You do everything you can to be in it with them, but at the end of the day you really have no clue what they are going through. This passage was poignant to me because when I was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, I covenanted to mourn with those who mourn and comfort those who stand in need of comfort. The mourning part comes easily for me, but sometimes I feel inadequate if all I have to offer is “the warm grasp of the friendly human hand.” That is often all I have to give. But for Jo, in that moment, Laurie’s presence helped. More than he even realized. It is both comforting and empowering to think that a simple expression of love and care at a tender time might help someone to feel the love of Jesus Christ; the only one who has felt exactly what we feel and is with us through our darkest nights when no one else can be.
Motherhood
My children are still very young, but I often think about how much parenting will change as they grow older. To realize that the way they need me now is nothing like the way they will need me as older children, teenagers, and adults, is overwhelming and exciting all at once. I will be there for all of it, and hopefully I will have the wisdom to change and grow along with them. Watching Mrs. March mother each of her daughters and observing the unique relationships that she shares with them is one of my favorite parts of this book.
Meg marries young and settles into a life of her own just down the road from her parents. After years of gentle lectures and very present parenting, now Marmee keeps her distance and respects Meg’s space, only offering her advice when absolutely necessary. She observes Meg’s marriage and family life, has an opinion when asked, but knows that the young family has to learn their own life lessons.
Jo spends a formative year away from home, working in New York. When she returns feeling lost and discouraged, Mother opens her heart, sharing deeply personal experiences that relate to what Jo is going through. The “heart to heart” conversations between her and Jo feel raw and real. And when Beth passes away, “Marmee” provides a safe shelter for Jo’s broken heart until Professor Bhaer comes back into the picture (love him!) She and Jo seem to be the most alike, and because of the personal experiences that they share with each other their relationship evolves into friendship as Jo grows older.
While she loves all her daughters, it seems that Mother needed Beth just as much as Beth needed her. Beth nurtures Mother as she keeps the house tidy and fills it with light and music. Through all of Mother’s comings and goings during the war years, Beth is there. A soothing, gentle presence in the home. Her dying wish is for Jo to take care of their parents. And when Beth gets sick, Mother is there to nurse her back to health, to take her to the seaside, and to fuel her faith in a loving God as she nears the end of her life.
To the seaside they went, after much discussion, and though Beth didn’t come home as plump and rosy as could be desired, she was much better, while Mrs. March declared she felt ten years younger.
And Amy. I loved getting to know Amy; the movies just don’t do her justice. Of all the sisters, she is the most unlike their mother. But as a young teenager she says,
“You laugh at me when I say I want to be a lady, but I mean to be a true gentlewoman in mind and manners, and I try to do it as far as I know how. I can’t explain exactly, but I want to be above the little meannesses and follies and faults that spoil so many women. I’m far from it now, but I do my best, and hope in time to be what Mother is.”
And then she returns from living abroad for THREE YEARS with no family contact other than occasional letters, and she is all grown up. A true gentlewoman.
Amy’s face was full of the soft brightness which betokens a peaceful heart, her voice had a new tenderness in it, and the cool, prim carriage was changed to a gentle dignity, both womanly and winning . . . it stamped her at once with the unmistakable sign of the true gentlewoman she had hoped to become.
Amy needed space to grow into her best self. She had observed her Mother for years, admired her, noticed her strengths. and when it came time to make crucial life decisions, it was Mother’s example that was her strongest influence. All Mrs. March had to do for her youngest daughter was to be her best self as Amy watched.
Beth’s fever breaks and she lives for a few more years until her weakened body succumbs to the fever once again. She and Jo shared the strongest bond of all the sisters, and after her death Jo struggles to make sense of her own place in the world.
And when the sight of the little empty bed made her cry with the bitter cry of unsubmissive sorrow . . . her mother came to comfort her, not with words only, but the patient tenderness that soothes by a touch, tears that were mute reminders of a greater grief than Jo’s, and broken whispers, more eloquent than prayer, because hopeful resignation went hand-in-hand with natural sorrow. Sacred moments, when heart talked to heart in the silence of the night, turning affliction to a blessing, which chastened grief and strengthened love. Feeling this, Jo’s burden seemed easier to bear, duty grew sweeter, and life looked more endurable, seen from the safe shelter of her mother’s arms.
And there are all my motherhood goals in a nutshell. Giving them “patient tenderness” despite my own griefs or hardships, heart to hearts that turn “affliction to a blessing,” and simply making life feel more endurable for my children from the safe shelter of my arms. Mrs. March isn’t always a physical presence in her daughter’s lives, but the foundational teaching from their childhoods holds strong as they enter adulthood.
Digital Minimalism
Not everyone is a fan of this novel, but the relationship shared by the March family is magic, even to a skeptical eye. As I read, I kept asking myself, “how can I have more of that Little Women feeling in my life?” (anyone who watched the latest movie knows what I mean). And then I got to the end of the book and read this passage:
Jo was alone in the twilight, lying on the old sofa, looking at the fire, and thinking. It was her favorite way of spending the hour of dusk. No one disturbed her, and she used to lie there on Beth’s little red pillow, planning stories, dreaming dreams, or thinking tender thoughts of the sister who never seemed far away.
She spends an hour a day, staring at the fire, THINKING. It is her favorite way to spend the evening. To sit and think! When do I ever sit quietly and think? Granted, I am a mother of 3 small children so those moments are hard to come by, but I can totally bring more of that quietness into my life. When the kids are napping, I can choose to read for a bit instead of scrolling Instagram. When I am cleaning the kitchen, I can just do the dishes in peace instead of spending five minutes trying to choose something to watch or listen to while I do them. What if I just let myself be more quiet? Gave myself time to reflect? It seems strange to confess that I want to practice thinking, but there it is.
Cutting out the noise, simplifying our schedule, being more intentional about the digital media that I bring into my home, are all intentions that I have with the goal of creating a more mindful family culture. Let this be a home where we enjoy being in each other’s company! Where we learn together, talk together, play games, read, enjoy music, and take time to appreciate the world and our own place in it. That is my dream.
There were a great many holidays at Plumfield, and one of the most delightful was the yearly apple-picking . . . one of these fruitful festivals occurred, a mellow October day, when the air was full of an exhilarating freshness which made the spirits rise and the blood dance healthily in the veins. The old orchard wore its holiday attire. Goldenrod and asters fringed the mossy walls. Grasshoppers skipped briskly in the sere grass, and crickets chirped like fairy pipers at a feast. Squirrels were busy with their small harvesting. Birds twittered their adieux from the alders in the lane, and every tree stood ready to send down its shower of red or yellow apples at the first shake. Everybody was there. Everybody laughed and sang, climbed up and tumbled down . . . and everyone gave themselves up to the simple pleasure of the hour as freely as if there were no such things as care or sorrow in the world.
