AUBURN — A thief stole Terry Lowell’s faith. Now, kindness is bringing it back.

In January, someone stole about $28,000 in cash from the 72-year-old maintenance worker and his wife, Sharon, who has Parkinson’s disease. The money was a cushion from paycheck-to-paycheck living and the bills that went with Sharon’s treatment.

It was all their savings, and they believe it was stolen by a woman they hired to clean for them and care for Sharon.

Since a story about the couple’s loss was published in the Sun Journal on Nov. 27, the couple have received about $2,700 in donations. About 90 percent of the gifts are from total strangers. Donors have come forward from as far away as Tuscon, Ariz.

And on Christmas morning, a father and son appeared at the Lowell’s home in Auburn.

“The father said, ‘I read about your plight and I wanted to show you that there are some good people out there,'” Terry said. The man then handed him an envelope. “I thanked him, wished him a Merry Christmas and then I opened it up and there was a check from his family for $1,000.”

“I looked at my wife, sat down and we both just cried,” Terry Lowell said. “I just couldn’t help it.”

But it’s not only the grander gestures that have touched the couple.

One woman sent the couple a supermarket gift card, saying she had little to give but had won the card and wanted to help.

“It’s like, ‘Holy cow,'” Terry said. “This lady has nothing.”

In a practical sense, the money has been a great help, particularly at Christmas. 

It has also been healing.

Sharon’s faith never wavered, he said. Terry’s did. The former lay minister in the Catholic Church felt guilty for keeping so much cash and anger at trusting the former worker, whose case is scheduled to go to trial in January.

“Of course my faith has changed,” Lowell said. “You’d have to be inhuman for it not to have changed.”

But he believes his faith in people and God is returning.

“It’s coming back slow, but it’s coming back,” he said. “I can feel it.”

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