The coronavirus pandemic has led to many restrictions in Hawaii, but 68-year-old Bradford Lum said it won’t stop him from being active.
A longtime activist and passionate kumu (teacher), Lum found himself avidly hiking since the pandemic started in February.
“I’m just one of those older people who keep young, and I don’t look my age,” he said.
He said the hardest hike he completed was at the Hawaii Loa Ridge Trail in August. The 3.9-mile round-trip hike can last 45 minutes to five hours, if you’re a first-timer.
Despite dangerous obstacles and a heart-wrenching incline along the ridge, Lum conquered the hike.
He reflected by sitting with his friends post-hike, then looking at the ridge and marveling, “Holy hell. I did that?”
The next hike Lum wants to
accomplish is the Stairway to Heaven, also known as Haiku Stairs, in Kaneohe.
But hiking is more than a physical activity — it’s a motivation for him to continue fighting his cancers.
In April 2014, Lum was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate and bone cancer. About six years later he actively goes to treatment.
“Like all Buddhists, a Buddhist fights for his life,” he said. “A Buddhist turns poison into medicine. All of the pain that I had felt goes away.”
In 1976 Lum graduated from the University of Hawaii at Manoa with a bachelor’s degree in communications. He became an educator, and in 2018 retired from Liholiho Elementary School.
“I really believe that teaching children will help better themselves with those Hawaiian values,” he said.
Lum, who was born in 1952, grew up in McCully. He describes himself as a territorial being (a residents born before 1959, before Hawaii became a state).
Born into a traditional Christian and musical family, Lum found his rhythm by playing the ukulele and dancing hula. His father was an avid musician, and his mother played stand-up bass in Waikiki.
After his parents died, he slowly transitioned to Buddhism.
Lum has been Buddhist for six years. He follows the mantra of “Nam myoho renge kyo,” a religious chant that means “devotion to the mystic law of the lotus sutra.”
A character of many traits,
Lum conducts blessings and
officiates weddings. He’s also protested on the front lines of Mauna Kea with thousands of Native
Hawaiian demonstrators against the Thirty Meter Telescope; he helped organize a Black Lives Matter protest in June; and he’s a strong advocate for LGBTQ+ rights.
His friends would describe him as a loving person who puts others first.
“My friends are very important to me,” he said. “Ever since this COVID thing, we call each other and we make sure we’re OK. We’re just a healthy kind of group. I’m lucky.”
Lum is a member of the Rotary E-Club of Hawaii, an organization that performs humanitarian deeds. Last year Lum received the Paul Harris award.
“That’s the highest award that a Rotarian can receive,” he said. “When I received the award, I actually cried.”
Lum said he will continue to do things “that kupuna don’t usually do”: paddleboard, surf and hike. He added that people need to “always have aloha for each other in a pandemic.”
“With this pandemic, we lost that aloha with each other,” he said. “The only way to get that aloha back is to love each other unconditionally, even if you’re wrong or right.”
