Rachel and Jesse Yerbich had four-and-a-half months with their son, Benjamin Allen, in their home in Granite Falls, Minn. She found him unconscious in his crib “and he had already passed at that point, although they worked on him for 55 minutes in the ambulance and hospital.

“He was a perfect baby, he never cried, but he liked to be held. After they unhooked him from all the tubes and things in the emergency room, I held him from like 6 p.m. until 1 or 2 in the morning as my husband and family came in.”

Like most parents, she felt guilt along with the pain. “I wanted the autopsy to come back and say that there was something wrong with his heart or nervous system, I wanted something to blame.”

But the diagnosis was SIDS. “The medical investigators, even my pediatrician told me that the finding of SIDS means you didn’t do anything wrong. But it also means it can happen to any baby, even one that’s completely healthy.”

Also like many SIDS parents, the Yerbiches set up a memorial fund to commemorate their baby. Others do walks or runs or golf as fundraisers, but Ben loved camping and fishing with the family, and so, even though they now live in Montana, they returned to Minnesota this summer for a walleye tournament in honor of Ben.