Lee Cataluna: John Radcliffe starts saying goodbye and other things

John Radcliffe’s days are booked up with what he calls “last lunch” appointments. Radcliffe, 78, the former high-profile union leader and bulldog lobbyist, has known his cancer was terminal since his diagnosis in 2014. He was initially given six to 24 months to live, but he seems to have negotiated his own terms with the disease. He knows it will take him in the end, and the end may be getting near, but he is still dictating certain conditions. “I’m the most grateful guy in the world,” he said, sitting in the living room of his Honolulu apartment. “My life has been wonderful. My family is solid.”

He’s blown past all expectations for living with his illness, and he’s still looking fantastic, still telling great political-insider stories and still as sharp-witted as ever. But in the last several weeks, his pain has significantly increased. The cancer is now inside his peritoneal cavity and affecting multiple organs. He had been using medical marijuana for years, but now that’s not enough. He’s in hospice care now, and in the last two weeks, he has started using opiates, increasing the dosage when the pain is too sharp, and he’s been having his goodbye meetings with old friends and colleagues.

“Coming to Hawaii was the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said, and then added, “Well, I have a number of ‘best things’ that happened to me. But being accepted here was one of them.”

Radcliffe came to Hawaii in 1975 from Virginia to be head of the Hawaii State Teachers Union, a position he held for 13 years. One of his first steps was to demand safe working conditions for teachers in Hawaii schools, describing threats of violence and substandard facilities. Among his great stories was being head of the union in 1978 when the state finally paid a settlement to John and Aiko Reinecke, who had been famously fired from their jobs as teachers in 1948 because of reported ties to the American Communist Party. But that’s just one story. He’s got a million of them.

Radcliffe isn’t spending all his time looking backward, though. For a man who is living his last days (though no one knows many days he still has, and he has a track record of defying expectations), he has been thinking a lot about the future.

He’s made an endorsement in the race for Honolulu mayor, writing his own copy for a campaign ad for Colleen Hanabusa. “You know why I endorsed her? She supported medical marijuana and medical aid in dying, she’s strong with the unions, and because she called me up and asked. Nobody else asked,” he said.

He’s been watching news coverage of the unrest in our country and has thoughts about changes to law enforcement. When he was in law school, he did fieldwork with inner-city police teams who were specifically trained in counseling. “It was a cadre of cops who had their master’s degrees or Ph.D.s,” he said. He talked about the danger police officers face when going into domestic cases, and how these teams were trained to deescalate the situation, back each other up, talk to people, approach with respect and show a willingness to listen. “It isn’t that we don’t know what to do, it’s been done before,” he said “but it doesn’t fit into the cop culture. You don’t get to be chief by being nice to people.”

He also has a lot to say about the scourge of racism. “That has got to end. I think a lot of people are on the right side of things,” he said. “I hope enough are.”

Radcliffe started out as a teacher, became head of the teachers union and later became a registered lobbyist, establishing a firm that took on dozens of clients each legislative session. He may have spent more time at the state Capitol than some in elected office. After he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Radcliffe became an advocate for legalizing medical aid in dying in Hawaii, standing as an example of someone who wants to have a choice in how his death plays out.

“Fighting cancer includes not letting the son of a bitch win by controlling death,” he said.

The effort to pass the Our Care, Our Choice Act was successful, and Radcliffe has his prescription on hand, but for now he’s bright-eyed, full of ideas and able to handle the pain well enough to see friends, talk story, say goodbye.

I ask whether he has any big items left on his to-do list. Radcliffe says he’d like his ashes scattered from a helicopter over the state Capitol on the opening day of the next legislative session. I figure he’s joking, but he smiles and shrugs, playing like maybe he’s not. After all, his influence on Hawaii government has been widespread for decades, and he’s still dictating his terms.