It had been a refrain in Julie’s life — when she was living in Atlanta, where she went to law school, and there was a deal on a getaway to Portland. Then, after she met her partner, Sarah, when they’d visit her family in Vermont.

“Let’s go to Maine, let’s go to Maine,” they’d always say, she said.

She wanted to see what birds were here — one of the countless ways she likes to spend time outside — and how the coastline was different from Texas, where she’s from, and the West Coast, near where they live now.

For whatever reason, it never happened, but there was always next time. Until there wasn’t.

Fatigue and a lingering cough led Julie to make a doctor’s appointment for what she thought, from typing her symptoms in an internet search, was probably gastroesophageal reflux. Her doctor initially thought it was a parathyroid issue, which tests revealed she did have, along with a much more devastating diagnosis: stage 4 non-small-cell lung cancer.

That was in July. They had been preparing to leave for Alaska, but first found themselves traveling to a hospital in Texas, then Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center — closer to their home in Spokane, Washington — for a second opinion. There, they made a treatment plan, with just enough time before it started to go ahead with a shortened version of their trip. They saw glaciers and grizzly bears and fished for trout, all the while receiving more test results, none with the news they were hoping for about her prognosis.

Visiting Alaska had been on Julie’s bucket list. Suddenly, getting through the rest became more urgent.

CHANGING LENS

Julie and Sarah asked to only be identified by their first names because not everyone Julie works with is aware of her diagnosis.

Julie has been pulling back from her job as a lawyer, but at 57, she’s at the pinnacle of her career, and between that and the security of having the health insurance and additional income (Sarah works remotely for a university), she’s not ready to leave it completely.

But there’s also that bucket list.

“Your lens changes when you have cancer, that you want to go do whatever you can as soon as you can, and enjoy it,” Julie said.

Because of her treatment — which includes radiation, chemotherapy and immunotherapy — there aren’t too many days a month when she’s not feeling sick or has a strong enough immune system to travel.

Travel, to Julie, used to mean going to places like Borneo, she said. That’s no longer an option. She’s been to the emergency room three times this year, because her blood oxygen got low or she was coughing up blood, so she can never be far from a hospital.

She’s gone to Florida for a wedding and to Texas to visit family over Thanksgiving. They stayed in a compound on the beach in Encinitas, California, to escape the winter weather, like they do every year.

When Julie found out her godson was getting married in Vermont, coincidentally near where Sarah grew up, it was decided. They weren’t just going to say they should go to Maine. They were going.

SOMETHING IN THE WATER

Sarah has always been the trip planner. It’s something she enjoys doing — unlike going to the grocery store, one of the chores she’s had to take on since Julie’s been sick.

“It changes everything about your life. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying,” Julie said about cancer.

They had settled into their respective roles in the 17 years since they met at a wine bar in Austin, Texas, and talked for three hours straight. They haven’t spent much time apart since, and although Julie can’t get behind the institution of marriage, not long before her diagnosis, they designed rings together as a symbol of their lifelong commitment to each other. If there’s a single reason why Julie doesn’t want to leave this earth, she said, it’s Sarah.

Life for Sarah has changed, too, and lately she’s felt like it’s given her brain fog.

“I feel like it’s just this veil,” she said, slowly waving her palm in front of her face. “It’s a whole new world. There’s no going back.”

For their trip to Maine, she had imagined them meandering up the coast, but feeling too overwhelmed to decide where to stop and stay, she turned to Reddit, a platform she uses for everything from travel advice to tech support.

First & last trip to Maine – suggestions?
byu/liveoakster inMaine

“First & last trip to Maine – suggestions?” she titled the post.

She explained that her partner had terminal cancer and wanted to see the state. She listed their favorite activities (“birding, kayaking, and good food”) and asked for recommendations for towns to visit and unique places to stay, making clear that money was not an issue.

But along with the suggestions for lobster shacks and lighthouses came something unexpected: personal invitations for a free boat tour and time with a birding guide, a couple days’ stay in a cabin and a professional photo shoot.

“We were so blown away, and she almost can’t talk about it without crying,” Julie said.

They connected with some of the people who reached out and lost touch with others but mostly were left with a new impression of Mainers.

“I don’t know what’s in the water here,” Julie said.

HAVING HOPE

The water. Julie didn’t expect to be so close to it, she said Wednesday, overlooking the rocks along the coast from a red picnic bench outside The Lobster Shack at Two Lights in Cape Elizabeth. She’d imagined her view of the ocean in Maine would be from higher up, looking down.

Between bites of her first-ever fried clams — which she declared “delicious” and liked better than the lobster roll they ordered — she whipped her binoculars up to her eyes every time a bird flew by.

“I mean, why wouldn’t you come out here once a week?” she said, as the ocean breeze kept the midsummer-like sun at bay.

The Lobster Shack was among the most common of the recommendations they’d gotten from Reddit and from people they saw in Vermont, whose hugs with Julie were all six seconds longer than they were with everyone else.

“Everybody’s a little more emotional when they see you,” she said.

She knows what it’s like to be on their end of things. She was by her mother’s side during her battle with ovarian cancer, which led Julie to get gene testing that showed she was at risk, too. After her mother died in 2009, she got a preventive hysterectomy and double mastectomy and thought she was in the clear. But, she said, there’s new research exploring a connection between the same BRCA2 gene mutation and the kind of lung cancer she has, offering a possible cause. She’s never smoked a cigarette in her life.

Julie is not scared of death, she said, and feels lucky to live in a state that has a Death With Dignity law. That’s the kind of stuff you have to think about when you’re in her position.

“You get your things in order and see everyone and tell them you love them and apologize for what you have to apologize for,” she said. But you have to have hope, too.

She knows the longer she lives, the better chance she has of benefiting from breakthroughs in cancer research. Right now, she’s in the maintenance phase of treatment, where doctors are trying to keep her tumors, including one around a pulmonary artery, from growing or spreading. She has scans coming up at the end of June that will show if they have. Nobody knows what to expect.

“Am I going to see 2026? Am I going to see my 60th birthday?” If so, she said, “something’s going down.” Ideally, a destination party in Mexico, if she’s feeling well enough. If not, maybe Montana.

But for now, she’s in Maine.

ENCOUNTERS WITH KINDNESS

They almost didn’t make it. Julie had some rough days while they were in Vermont, coughing so much she couldn’t sleep. They decided they wouldn’t cancel just yet, taking it day by day, and when it came time to leave for Portland, she was feeling better.

They got here Tuesday, staying in a loft in the Old Port. About a third of the way into their mile walk to dinner at Wayside Tavern in the West End, Julie asked if they were almost there. Those are the times when she gets mad. A hiker and mountain biker, she’s angry her body can’t do what she wants it to.

“The things you take for granted in your everyday life, man, they become monumental,” she said.

Her mother — her birding and traveling companion — was the same way, a runner and tennis player, always fit and healthy. Looking back, she regrets trying to push her to do more when she was sick. Now, she understands.

Walking up the stairs to The Lobster Shack, she stopped at the top, not to take in the view but because she was winded. During lunch, they talked about visiting some museums and galleries in town that afternoon, but they ended up napping instead.

Before their dinner reservation at Scales, they arranged to meet the photographer who had reached out on Reddit, offering a free photo shoot at their convenience.

It’s something Justine Johnson has been doing for people with older or ill pets for the last 10 years and, more recently, for people with sick family members, when she comes across them.

“I didn’t want to impose on their trip. Not everybody loves photos,” she said, but she also hears a lot of couples say they don’t have many pictures together, aside from selfies.

They met outside Scales and took some photos by the wall of the restaurant, in Bell Buoy Park and in front of Standard Baking. By the time they were done, they weren’t feeling very hungry, so they canceled their reservation and went instead to cocktail bar Blyth & Burrows, a recommendation from a family member.

They ended up sitting next to a sales manager for Allagash Brewing — a favorite of Sarah and the namesake of a cat she had — who, without knowing the backstory of their trip, offered them cans of beer and swag from the brewery. The bartender made a special basil mocktail for Julie, who has to limit the alcohol she drinks. Again, they were struck by the kindness of strangers — of Mainers.

The next morning, they met up with a biologist, another Reddit connection, to go birding on Salt Bay Farm in Damariscotta and, from there, hoped to visit the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay before catching a ferry to Monhegan for the night.

They planned to spend a couple days in Camden, then leisurely make their way back to Boston, maybe with a stop at L.L.Bean, before their flight on Monday, straight to Seattle to start the next round of treatment.

The weather was supposed to turn at some point, but that didn’t matter. The generosity they were shown before they even got here had already made the trip more memorable than they could have imagined.

“It makes you feel good,” Julie said about seeing that side of humanity, “and I could use a lot more of that.”