Goodbye, Dear Claxyton Moultry

On March 24 the Greater Knoxville Cactus and Succulent Society (aka the cactus club) held its first meeting of 2024. The first to arrive was Claxyton Moultry, a longtime member and my friend. My heart sank as I saw him walk up the hill from the street to my house: he had clearly lost a lot of weight and although he didn’t seem to labor as he climbed, his face seemed drawn. As usual, he wasn’t going to introduce the subject of his health himself, but as an old friend I did. He said that he had lost 35 pounds. He had some sort of pancreatic issue and as a result he had become diabetic. He was working out at the gym only twice a week instead of five times and since everything tasted bad after he ate it, he was not eating much.

As others arrived, we greeted them and went inside. Our most bombastic member started to talk about something, but I shushed him to say that Claxyton was telling us something important. Claxyton recapped what he had already told me and then added some details, such as that he had had severe itching from the effects on his liver. Apparently the doctors were doing some further tests. Everybody was supportive and encouraging – Claxyton was a quiet person but popular in our group. He was going to celebrate his 70^th birthday on March 25. Claxyton’s wish, expressed for several years, was to finish his 40^th year of teaching art in the elementary grades of the Knox County school system and then retire. Now, he explained, he would have to take a medical leave of absence while he was being treated for his illness. But at least he had the glow from winning a teacher of the year award that recently.

About three weeks later I got a call that Claxyton was in hospice care. Apparently he had finally been taken to the hospital and was in a regular room only a couple of days before it was realized that he had two weeks or less to live. He had advanced pancreatic cancer. My husband and I rushed to the hospital to see him. When we got there, the sheet was over his head and I feared the worst. But his best friend William assured us that Claxyton was still alive, that Claxyton himself had pulled the sheet over his head as he fell asleep due to the sedation. So we visited with William; with Deirdre, Claxyton’s teaching partner of 11 years; and with other teachers and a fellow gym rat. Deirdre had put up in the hospital room some pictures of Claxyton, other teachers, and herself in various costumes they had donned for school events over the years; it was a revelation to see the quiet and reserved Claxyton mugging in character attire, including one where he was bare-chested and all that time working out really showed.

On April 18, he died. I was put in touch with his brother and sister, the last of five siblings. We in the cactus club arranged to go water the succulents in his greenhouse until it was time to put them outside for the summer, as was his usual practice. Over the next month, we watered, fought an ant infestation, and moved the plants out to the patio where the rain could water them. His brother and two friends told us that Claxyton’s wish for his beloved plants was that we in the cactus club take all the plants we wanted. The rest of the plants were to be donated to a horticultural entity at the University of Tennessee. We put together an inventory (with photographs of each plant), organized the adoption of plants by our members and club friends who had helped with the greenhouse and the watering, and finally oversaw the removal of the rest of the plants by the University of Tennessee people. Since as president of the club I led the effort, especially the compilation of the inventory, I felt the most responsible for making sure that Claxyton’s last wish for his beloved plants came true. I hope that we did it the way he would have wanted it.

Claxyton’s funeral was well attended. The audience included about forty people who were his fellow teachers, his students, or his students’ parents; I know this because in his niece’s eulogy she asked them to stand and I counted them. There was also a large family and friend contingent and a good representation from our little cactus club. Claxyton was black, by the way, so the audience included both black and white people. I was pleased that so many people, at the hospital and at the funeral, showed their obvious fondness for Claxyton and said that they thought he was a great guy. His niece, also a teacher in the public school system, said jokingly that nobody ever gave her a gift card at Christmas but Claxyton always got a pile of gift cards at Christmas from students and fellow teachers.

I will interject here that at our cactus club booth at the Lavender Festival in June, a woman came up to us and said that she hadn’t realized until she read Claxyton’s obituary that he was a part of our club. She was the parent of children who had had Claxyton as their art teacher over multiple years and she said that he was hugely popular among the students and parents. I was so gratified to hear this said again.

I spoke at Claxyton’s funeral on behalf of our club. Below is basically what I said. Because of time constraints, I did omit one thing I would have liked to have said: that once I asked Claxyton why he liked succulents so much (as opposed to other plants). In his usual think-before-you-speak manner, he paused a moment and then said it was because of their distinctive forms, especially their symmetry. Of course, it was the artist in him speaking.

My Eulogy of Claxyton

When people associate with each other for a long time – at work or in a special interest group – they form a family. Claxyton was a member of the Greater Knoxville Cactus and Succulent Society family for at least 35 years. (It might have been a lot longer, but our oldest records are missing.) I myself have known Claxyton for 30 years. Years ago, he told us that he was showing several pieces at an Oak Ridge art gallery show, so I went. I was blown away by his pieces, which were excellent. I was particularly impressed by his command of proportion, in particularly in his sculpture of a jaguar. [Heads nodded among the artists in the audience.]

When I was assigned to organize a meeting at which we painted succulents on tee shirts, of course I enlisted Claxyton as our guru. He circulated among us as we painted, giving suggestions and encouragement, while also painting his own shirt. At the end, we all looked at each others’ shirts. There was some nice stuff, but Claxyton’s was awesome. There was a foreground, a middle ground, a background; the rocks looked like rocks and the soil like soil. Dotted here and there were several succulents, beautifully rendered. Claxyton told me last year that he still had the shirt. I advise the family not to give it to charity, but instead to frame it!

Claxyton specialized in taking nice small plants [my hand motions indicating sizes] and turning then into nice big plants [hand motions indicating bigger sizes] by sustained and loving attention over a long period of time. I think that this was a metaphor for his teaching career as well. [Heads nodded over in the teacher group as I said this.]

At our booth at the Lavender Festival, Claxyton stood out front as our greeter. Somehow people just felt drawn to him. He seemed to know so many people, all of whom greeted him with enthusiasm. I have seen teenagers whom he had taught years earlier run up to him and hug him. Claxyton’s body building came in handy when he had to move his plants: I have seen him carrying two large pots with large succulents in them, one in each hand, half a block to our booth at the Lavender Festival. It helps to have muscles [I made a bodybuilding pose] if you’re going to grow the big succulents!

Several years ago we had a meeting where we were discussing some succulent and the speaker made reference to a black part of the plant. Then for some reason he made a lame joke, saying that Claxyton should understand that black referred to the plant and not to Claxyton. It was a dumb thing to say, but Claxyton, who had known the speaker for at least 35 years and knew that the guy liked him, tactfully did not reply. I thought that I should say something, so I turned to Claxyton and said, “I know you are black and all. But we’ve known each other for so many years and I just don’t see it.” He replied, “I feel the same way. At the end of the day, we are all the same. We’re all just people.” [Emphasis mine]

So goodbye, Claxyton – gone to God. The God who made all the succulents in their wonderful variety….and the God who made all of us, ditto. [There was a little frisson in the audience as I said this – just right.]