Aaron Axelrod

Aaron Sol Axelrod
2/14/1973 – 3/17/2012

He was an angel at heart–a cherubic Valentine’s Baby that grew into a beautiful child full of outgoing energy and infectious joy. He learned to swim at White Rock in the Santa Ynez River, across Paradise Road from the cabin that was home during his first years. He gained strength and agility climbing sandstone outcroppings and spreading oaks in his forested back yard.
He played hard and well. He won countless BMX races on his homemade bike, and he won the respect of both teammates and opponents in youth soccer, football, and baseball leagues, and at Santa Barbara High School where he graduated in 1990.

He was a faithful friend–fun to be around, loveable, joyful and full of life. He was loved by his aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents. He developed special bonds with his half-brothers, Ryan, Travis and Dylan. Though distant in age and proximity, they loved their big brother, and he them.
His daughter, Ciela Sol, was the most precious person in his life. He wanted to be a good father more that anything. He wanted to be the best Aaron he could be.

Aaron’s demons began to take him from us gradually, beginning in his late teens. Our beautiful son, this loyal friend to so many, this caring brother and loving father, became an erratic and explosive person as his mind became altered by the collaborative and insidious mechanisms of bipolar disorder and drug and alcohol addiction. Despite ebbing periods of clarity and stability– while sober in rehab programs or while serving time in jail or prison– Aarons’s demons finally overcame him, and led him into a tortured life spent in dark and sinister places, removed from the family and friends that loved him.

That part of Aaron is now gone, his spirit no longer dwells in the abyss of his mental illness and addiction. We are left in sorrow with our memories of Aaron Sol Axelrod, an angel at heart.
Aaron is survived by his mother, Ramona Switzer, father Dennis Axelrod, daughter Ciela Sol Angel, grandfather Fred Martinez, aunts Irene Fredricey, Tony Martinez and Terry Smith, uncles Rick Martinez and Barry Axelrod, and half-brothers Travis and Ryan Switzer and Dylan Axelrod.