Joyce Curtis had last heard from her son Nicholas back in 2010 and had come to fear that he had died in France. Nicholas had left home in Glasgow to go backpacking around Europe before the pair lost contact, leaving a heartbroken Joyce to fear the worst.
However on December 19 this year, a call from a French hospital informed Joyce that her son was indeed alive.
Joyce said: “I can’t believe it, I thought with Covid and everything that has gone on, I thought he was dead. I grieved for him.
“When I got the call to say he was alive I just went into shock. All I did was cry all day.
“This has just made Christmas for me, especially since my husband died back in June. It’s like that film Miracle on 34th Street. It’s like a miracle.”
She added: “I’d resigned myself to the fact that he had died.
“I really thought that and I think everybody thought the same.”
Joyce later added in a video posted to Facebook: “I never gave up on my son.”
The last time Joyce had heard the news of her son was in 2010 when the British Consulate in Paris notified her that Nicholas had been admitted to a hospital in France where she suspected he had been living on the streets.
“We were getting him home, but for some reason, I don’t know why, he just disappeared again. They were sending him home and I was told he was getting put on a flight.
“I was expecting him home in Glasgow at a certain time. I worked at the Southern General Hospital at the time. I was waiting on him to come home and there was no sign.
“When I was over visiting him in France I bought him some shoes and stuff like that so he could have clothes to travel home with. I was waiting in work. But he never got home. I remember it was pouring rain that day.
“I phoned every airport to see if he’d gotten on a flight but nothing. We never heard anything again. That was the last I heard from him until Monday.”
