Herald readers play Santa

CHRISTMAS SPIRIT: Amanda Conway and her son, Jack, 11, brought gifts to Jose Lacen yesterday to replace the ones that were stolen from his apartment Friday.

Big-hearted Herald readers are showing Jose Lacen it’s a wonderful life, but the handicapped man whose Roslindale apartment was ransacked by a depraved thief says all he really wants for Christmas is a friend.

“Someone to spend time with me - that would be a great gift. That’s all I want,” Lacen, 39, said yesterday after scores of deputized Santa Clauses from as far away as Tennessee and Wisconsin offered to replace the TV, DVD player, cash and presents for his two daughters stolen from him Friday while he was at a doctor’s appointment.

Lacen, a former jet fueler at Logan International Airport, has been dependent on a wheelchair since a life-threatening illness forced him into a month-long coma in 2000. He said conversation helps him with his speech therapy. Either by inconvenience or pang of conscience, whoever ripped him off mercifully left behind his computer.

“My company is my TV and computer,” said Lacen, a Patriots [team stats] and pro wrestling fan whose 10- and 18-year-old daughters live in Florida and North Carolina.

Some readers down on their own luck still wanted to send Lacen a Christmas card.

Amanda Conway of East Boston was especially touched by Lacen’s story. Her brother has Down syndrome.

“To me, anybody that’s disabled is more vulnerable,” Conway said. “It just hit me hard. It just made me angry. I’m far from rich, but I’d rather do something for somebody, and I hope I’m not the only person.”

She wasn’t. Not by a long shot.

Patrick Lombard, owner of West Cork Auto in Jamaica Plain, said, “I’ve been fortunate. I have a good business, nice kids. My life is good and I see this guy has nothing.

“You can’t help everybody,” Lombard said, “but this guy, I just felt I had to. He has two kids; I have three kids. Plus, he’s a Pats fan like I am. He’s got to have his TV back for Sunday.”

Stephanie McGowan of Foxboro, who is raising a child with autism, took one look at Lacen’s forlorn face on the front page of yesterday’s Herald and knew reaching out “was the right thing to do.”

“Something about him just compelled me to want to do something,” she said.

Timothy Sullivan of De Pere, Wisc., owner of Hidden Gems Cottages, grew up in Massachusetts.

“It just kind of broke my heart a little bit,” Sullivan said of Lacen’s plight. “Whether you’re somebody who needs the money or not, you just don’t steal from somebody like that. The poor guy’s in a wheelchair. There’s no excuse.”

Despite all he’s overcome, Lacen said, “I will always believe in people.

“You always find bad in life, but not everybody is the same. That I know for sure.”

Boston Herald