SOMETIMES the fates align in strange ways.

And a letter I received last week from a reader couldn’t have come at a more pertinent time.

October is, amongst many other things, pregnancy and infant loss awareness month. On October 15, which is the international infant loss awareness day, candles are lit across the world at 7pm as part of the Wave of Light event.

It’s for anyone who wishes to remember all the babies who have died during pregnancy, at, during or after birth.

Last year, our first lost baby had died a few days previously, so I remember some of my friends posting their own candle pictures to my Facebook page to join ours, which made for a very emotional evening.

My father emailed me a picture of his candle. Even if he couldn’t be here in person to comfort us, I was glad of the communion on that evening, knowing that, in my childhood home, he was at our kitchen table marking the occasion with his own personal flame.

Someone I will definitely be saying a prayer for this year is the lady who wrote the afore-mentioned letter.

She only signed it ‘Anon’ and explained her reasons for not giving her name.

I really hope, therefore, that she does not mind me writing about in this column, but I was so moved by her story that I wanted to share it with the readers who have been with me as I have struggled.

This lady, who is now in her seventies, revealed to me in the letter that she had lost a daughter at eight months’ gestation over 30 years ago.

Tragically, she never got to see her beautiful little daughter, and was still in hospital when her husband had to attend the burial himself.

I felt extremely privileged that she felt that she could tell me some details of what she went through and that she had taken the trouble to write to me about her pain and regret.

I only wish I had her details so that I could send a personal reply but I do understand why she chose to withhold her name.

Since my husband and I experienced our double bereavement, friends and relatives have shared their own stories with us, or told us about the experiences of someone they know themselves.

Other friends have told me that they are glad to have found out more about things like late miscarriage and what exactly happens to the women who go through it.

I do feel some sense of relief that we have played a small part of opening up the conversation about this most difficult issue as it’s clearly still something which people find it hard to address.

Things are getting better, however, as evidenced by the recent EastEnders stillbirth storyline and the revelations of one of the world’s most famous businessmen, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

His speaking publicly about the agony of his wife’s three miscarriages (she is now pregnant again with a baby girl) and the isolation they experienced will have helped shine the media spotlight where it seems to be needed.