So some things, we figure, ought to be safe.
Like sandboxes.
Carl Anderson loved sand and any other place where he could get down on the ground zooming his Matchbox cars up make-believe mountains and over make-believe highways.
He was 4.
He lived with his brother and parents in a double-wide on 47 acres of rolling Colorado cow country near Calhan with big sky and tall grass and dirt as far as you can see.
The kid with the wide eyes and copper hair spent hours riding up and down his driveway trying to work off his training wheels. He pretended to help his dad fix old Pontiacs out back. And almost every day, he played with trucks in the dirt pile off his front porch, synchronizing his toy traffic to his soundtrack of little-boy engine noises.
When he undressed at night, dirt and sand would spill from his shoes and pockets.
“He was all energy, all boy, all the time,” says his father, Josh Anderson. “All he ever wanted was for you to play with him.”
Carl’s life hadn’t always been easy.
When he was a toddler, social workers threatened to remove him and older brother Shane from the care of their birth mother in Missouri. She finally walked out on Carl’s second birthday, leaving Josh — then an Air Force crew chief — to raise his brood alone.
Nine months later, he remarried a soft-spoken and tender woman who embraced the boys as her own.
“Carl couldn’t stay out of my lap,” says Anne Anderson. “Not five minutes would go by without him saying, ‘I love you.’ Unless he had food in his mouth.”
Carl had learned how to shower and dress himself. He was working on tying his own shoes before his fifth birthday on June 9. And he was looking forward to playing T-ball like his big brother.
“He thought he could fly off the roof and do anything. He was that invincible,” Anne says.
Still, she worried when her little boy would miss his nap. She slathered on sunscreen to keep his pale skin from burning. And she reminded him constantly not to swallow his food or chug his milk so fast.
For Josh, fears centered on his garage. He warned his sons not to mess with his paint stripper, starter fluid or his toolbox.
“As a parent, you’re always trying to anticipate where the danger is and stay a step ahead,” he says.
On April 24, Carl was playing outside his day care center, waiting for his dad to pick him up. He was on his belly in the sandbox, apparently maneuvering a toy truck in a 12-inch hole that somehow collapsed around him. In an instant, he inhaled a large amount of sand.
When Josh arrived five minutes later, his boy was limp and blue as day care workers tried to remove the sand from his mouth. Carl seemed to bounce back as paramedics rushed him to the fire department, then airlifted him to the hospital.
He was alert but quiet during the hour it took for him to suffocate.
“He was looking up at me the whole time,” Josh says.
On Wednesday, he buried his boy in a Lightning McQueen shirt. Joining him in the coffin were a football, stuffed bear and a box of his favorite mac-and-cheese.
Josh Anderson’s family of four is now a family of three with a big hole of grief and incredulity.
“We keep thinking we’re going to wake up from this,” he says. “There’s no way you can see it coming.”
Susan Greene writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 303-954-1989 or greene@denverpost.com.
