He left with us memories of his cheeky mannerisms, his willingness to lend a hand to anyone in need, his love of beer and bourbon, fishing, golf and cricket. He was a doting father who helped Emma catch her first fish off the Whitianga wharf in the February before he died. He helped her to ride her first bike which she got for her third birthday - just two weeks before he died.
What will always bother me - aside from the fact that he was too young to leave - is that Clinton didn't get to die how he wanted to die.
He wanted to be at home, where he was comfortable in his own surroundings. Instead, he was in a tired, bland and haunting hospital room in a wing of Waikato Hospital that has since been demolished.
He had seen enough of the decline of his comrades at the brain tumour support group that we attended to know that he didn't want to have to travel the path some of them did. And while assisted dying was never an option for Clinton, we had conversations about how he'd like the end to be. He wanted to be at home.
But his last days came far quicker and more sudden than we could have imagined. There was no time to prepare for his death. I thought his trip to ED would result in getting his morphine dose right before being discharged. I never thought that trip to hospital would be where he would spend his final hours.
When I returned to the hospital just after midnight on the day he would die, having gone home to shower, eat dinner and have a short nap, I had a conversation with Clinton. It would his last lucid one. He said to me: "I know what's happening now ... I know I'm dying. But I don't want to be here - I want to go home."
I pleaded with hospital staff to investigate whether Clinton could be transported home. Their advice - to do so would be too much for him. And so, just hours later, Clinton took his last breath in a brown and cream hospital room.
Around the time that Clinton was departing this plane, a nurse bowled into his room. To this day, I don't really know why. Maybe she wanted to say she'd taken over the shift or to ask if we needed anything. Regardless, Clinton's last breaths and the peace that should have prevailed in that time was rudely and jarringly interrupted.
How much more peaceful it might have been for all - both Clinton and those who sat with him in his final hours - had he had the chance to die in his time, at his own choosing, in an environment in which he was comfortable and at peace.
There are people whose argument against voluntary euthanasia is that life is precious and sacred. I absolutely agree. I've seen first hand how precious it is. But I will never apologise for wholeheartedly supporting Lecretia's family's passionate request to Parliament to seriously discuss and consider a law change around assisted dying.
As it was Clinton's choice to discontinue chemotherapy and opt for "quality over quantity", so too it should have been his choice to make if he had so desired to end his life as he had wished. He may not have chosen that path, but I know for a fact he would have considered it had it been an option.
Having seen others decline, it was incredibly bothersome for him to think he may go the same way. It was a small mercy that his end journey was relatively short and that he didn't have to experience paralysis or a long-term vegetative state.
My hope is that one day soon New Zealand will allow death with dignity, and that people like Lecretia and Clinton are empowered with the choice to die how they wish.
Danielle Nicholson is editor of the Hamilton News.
