By RAHN ELLIS ADAMS
My 98-year-old aunt Clara Ellis Duckworth Clontz died in her sleep last Saturday, the last day of 2016. Her preacher reminded us Wednesday at her funeral that her bedtime prayer for some time had included a request to die in her sleep. We all had heard her say that but must have secretly hoped—I had, at least—that she would live to see 100.
As I noted in this column last week, the deaths that especially touched me last year were not the losses of celebrities but were the passings of old friends and family members—like Aunt Clara—whose lives were celebrated for reasons much more personal than fame, fortune or artistic talent. To hope that death takes a holiday this year would be futile. As Chaucer wrote, “Time and tide wait for no man.”
I don’t know why my mother named me after Aunt Clara, and I have to admit that as a teenager I was a bit embarrassed that I had been named after a woman—any woman, not Clara in particular. Apparently Dad had dibs on my first name, which has been problem enough for me through the years. Dr. Rahn Hottenstein was Dad’s family doctor in Millersburg, Pa., and must have treated Dad when he had near-fatal pneumonia in the 1940s.
Don’t get me wrong: I always loved Aunt Clara, and if I were going to get a woman’s name, Ellis was a much better choice than any other female relative’s name. I mean, I could have been named Zula after Grandmother or Babe after my dad’s favorite sister (even though Rahn Babe Adams would have been a great baseball name). And, of course, Clara had been named after a man, so there was that.
Ellis, which is a variant of Elisha or Elijah, means “God is salvation.” I can live—and die—with that, proudly. Amen.