Justin Farmer was the kind of person who would give you the shirt off his back. That is factual, not rhetorical. Once, while restocking the cooler at Zach’s Country Store, his daughter got soaked by leaking beer cans. Justin came by and gave her his own shirt to wear.
Justin, who lived in the house on Long Point that he grew up in, died on Jan. 27 at 54. Family and friends said he was proud of his town and his state, and he loved the ocean. He was always ready to help when someone was in need. He worked hard, held his family close, and tried to embody kindness, compassion and humor.
As a kid, he spent his free time around Long Point with his siblings and friends, and lobstered with his parents, John and Belinda. He played hockey for Mt. Ararat. After high school, he moved Down East to the border town of Lubec, where his father’s family came from.
He met his future wife, Kimberly, there, and learned how to dig clams from her mother. He kept digging the rest of his life. His daughter, Mikayla, said he loved to be on or near the water: “There was something about it that just made him feel at peace.”
Justin took stewardship seriously too, according to Mikayla, serving on a town committee and doing conservation work, like reseeding a clam bed or picking up trash.
Justin and Kimberly had their first two kids, John and Mikayla, in Lubec, then twins Isaac and Nathaniel when Justin brought his family back up to live on Sunset Cove in Harpswell. The two are now separated.
As Justin’s parents aged, he made sure he was always around. He would go to their house for coffee daily, to make sure his mom took her medicine and to see if they needed anything. After his mother died in 2017, he moved in to help his dad, who followed her in 2018.
Their deaths, along with the 2016 death of his nephew Nicholas, were hard on him. John said he was a sadder person after that. That didn’t stop him from looking out for others, or trying to make them smile. Justin’s sister and Nicholas’ mother, Julie, said he was her rock in the years since their deaths. “He was always there for anybody,” she said.
Justin and his sister showed Mikayla and her brothers that it’s OK to grieve and even to break down, and taught them how to keep going. Justin’s ashes are in an urn on his father’s desk, next to his parents’ and Nicholas’ urns, where he wanted them.
Justin also showed his kids how to care for others. That started with them. “He was the best dad,” Julie said. “He would do anything for his kids.”
He was always there if they were sick or got hurt, even into adulthood. When Mikayla had her tonsils out at 14, he had a stuffed animal and mashed potatoes ready. When she had emergency surgery as an adult, he was at her bedside when she woke up, still wearing his digging boots. He moved her onto the pullout couch next to his bedroom so he could help her recover.
“He always gave us our room to make our mistakes, but he was always there to let us know it was OK,” Mikayla said. She knew she could always call him, and that he’d always come help.
John, who is recovering from addiction, credits his dad with saving his life. “He showed me another way,” he said.
John was 7 when Justin got him his first clam license, and the two dug together for almost 30 years. He said they both loved the freedom of digging, just the two of them with the birds and the wind and the water.
John has his own daughters now, and he said Justin made sure to see them every day.
His compassion and sense of duty extended beyond his immediate family. When his sons’ friends, a pair of brothers, were going through a rocky patch as teenagers in their own home, Justin moved them into his for the next several years.
One of those brothers, Ty Williams, said Justin was someone he could look up to when he didn’t have many role models in his life. “He showed me how a person should act,” Williams said.
Justin died of a suspected heart attack after shoveling snow at his girlfriend’s house in Topsham. Stephanie Alexander said the two had been friends on Long Point as kids. They reconnected in the last few years after each separated from their spouse.
Recently, they spent time camping near Mount Blue and elsewhere in Maine. He was her ride to and from work, so each morning he’d be at her house for coffee and to talk while she got ready. Stephanie said they liked to get Chinese food and stay in to watch a movie.
John said Justin’s lesson was to love as much as you can and to be there for everybody. “He used to tell us, ‘We’re here to help people.'”
