There was a time when there were no pink ribbons.

The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation was formed in 1982. Two years after her sister died of breast cancer, fulfilling a promise to find a way to accelerate breast cancer research, Nancy Brinker began the fight.

Today the organization is called Susan G. Komen for the Cure, has invested $1 billion toward research, education, and health services, and has 122 affiliates nationwide. The organization plans to invest $2 billion over the next decade in the fight to end breast cancer forever.

Does the magnitude of research dollars make a difference? Here is one piece of evidence: the five-year survival rate for early-detection of breast cancer in 1982 was 74% . Today it is better than 98%.

Still, prior to 1982, there were no pink ribbons. Unfortunately for the afflicted, grass roots charity organizations do not build quickly. Numbers take time. Research costs money.

On Christmas Day last year, my wife Amy and I were blessed with the arrival of the best holiday gift ever: our son, Brody. He was full-term at seven pounds, five ounces. He was perfect, well beyond the counting of fingers and toes. He was ruddy and strong. He ate well. He cried only when he had a need. He grew according to the charts. He slept on his back.

Children are the innocent; they enter this world unencumbered by prejudice, cruelty, injustice, or war. They are our angels.

On February 21, I received the phone call that every parent fears. Only three of the spoken words from that telephone receiver touched ground in my mind:

Brody. Emergency. Paramedics.

If you were in the Parker that day, near Ponderosa High School between 1 and 2 pm, you may recall seeing or hearing a helicopter land. This is not something that happens every day in a quiet suburban neighborhood; it was a bit of an odyssey. To Amy and me, however, this helicopter was more than an odyssey. It had come to airlift Brody to Children's Hospital in an attempt to save his life.

Our son never made that trip.

I can assure you there are no words to describe the ache over the loss of a child. There is no sentiment in a condolence card that can balm a wounded heart. From every death comes significance and suffering, but when a child dies, loss is amplified. When we lost Brody, we lost a part of ourselves we will never fully regain. Our challenge in dealing with our profound pain is, however, compounded:

Brody died of no official cause. His death was ruled by Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS. Unfortunately, within that finding lies no finding at all. There were no signs of trauma, no disease.

Parents of SIDS victims are left to grieve differently. We look for answers where there are none. We look to point fingers at reason, but reason has turned out to be merely a ghost. And because the numbers are relatively small, we crave camaraderie in our everyday lives, a place where there is so little to be found.

I have seen a thousand pink ribbons on my commutes to and from my work, but the first SIDS ribbon I have ever witnessed was the one I placed on the back of my own car.

SIDS research is still lacking. This is a killer that stalks our most innocent ones, yet does so without warning and without signature. The preventative measures of which we are now aware, like putting a sleeping baby on his back, are arguably significant. Statistically. But they are not causative, and there can be no cure until a cause is proven.

At least one child dies of SIDS every week in the state of Colorado.

My wife and I have just opened The Brody J. Guthrie Foundation at the National Heritage Foundation. We are ultimately trying to start our own non-profit, our intent, much as Nancy Brinker's vision was over 25 years ago, is to eventually make a significant difference in the field of SIDS research.

We are also building a website with donation information, and have begun work on several fundraisers. Since we will always be needing volunteers, ideas, prayers, dollars, and auction items, if you are interested, please contact us at the following email address: howtohelp@brodyguthrie.org.

If you would like to make a donation, we do now have a link for that on Brody's page at the National Heritage Foundation.

Please look for our next article, which will offer more information and more ways to get involved.

And lastly, if you have children, or if your relatives have children, or if you live next to any children, please: give them a big, warm, heartfelt hug tonight. And take a small moment to have a positive thought for those who've lost their own precious, huggable ones.