When Sergio Arredondo got a new liver, he went to heaven for several hours. He’s never been the same since.

 

“It was paradise,” he smiles. “I saw flowers, grass, rivers, and trees. I didn’t want to come back.”

Although he admits he wasn’t “much of a believer,” that experience changed the way he lives his life. “Everything stays here,” he notes. You can’t take money, cars, houses, or bank accounts to heaven. 

 

“Now I have more patience,” he says. “I do good deeds. I enjoy life. I enjoy my friends. And I don’t worry about anything.”

 

He also knows the best is yet to be. “Something very nice is waiting for all of us,” he says.  

But to understand how Sergio arrived at that moment between life and death, you have to understand the family behind him.

 

Long before the hospital rooms, surgeries, and life-threatening diagnoses, there was a car dealership in the San Fernando Valley. Mimi was the receptionist. Sergio was washing cars in the detail department.

 

Sergio had immigrated to the United States from Michoacán, Mexico when he was eight years old. Mimi, who is Filipino, moved to the United States with her family from the Philippines when she was five. They first lived in the Bay Area before eventually settling in Southern California.

 

Mimi grew up in a strict household. “They wouldn’t even allow me to get a summer job,” she recalls.

 

But when she turned eighteen, her parents finally allowed her to work. She landed a job at a car dealership in Valencia, California. That’s where Sergio was already working.

 

“My brother José worked there too,” Sergio explains.

 

Mimi remembers the first time she noticed Sergio.

 

“All the salespeople would come up to me and flirt,” she says. “This guy walked by me without saying hi.”

 

He was quiet. Shy. Focused on his work. Sergio laughs when he thinks about it. “I was the gopher,” he says.

 

But life at the dealership turned into something much bigger. José Arredondo, Sergio’s brother, eventually became the right-hand man to the dealership owner. Over time, the Arredondo family would build a powerful reputation in the auto industry.

 

In 1994, an opportunity opened up. José had the chance to own his own dealership in Bakersfield. The family came together to help make it happen.

 

“There are eleven of us,” Sergio says of his siblings and extended family. “José decided to call it Family Motors.” 

 

The move to Bakersfield would shape the next chapter of their lives.

 

Sergio and Mimi married in 1987. He was 24. She was 22. Nearly four decades later, their life is full and busy with family. Today, the family includes three sons, one daughter, and a growing group of grandchildren.

 

“We have four grandsons and one granddaughter,” Mimi says with a smile. “Finally.”

Their youngest grandchild just turned three. 

 

Family has always been at the center of everything. The Arredondo family built their businesses together, worked side by side at dealerships, and poured their time and resources into helping the Bakersfield community.

 

“There are a lot of farm workers here,” Sergio explains. Over the years, the family supported schools, hospitals, scholarships, and programs that provided meals to farm workers and families in need. Helping people was part of the culture José built. And José was the heart of it all.

 

Then came 2019. It was a year the family will never forget. At the beginning of the year, Sergio lost his oldest brother in January. He had been the first sibling to come to the United States and helped bring the rest of the family here.

 

Then in May, Sergio was hospitalized with a devastating diagnosis: nonalcoholic cirrhosis caused by fatty liver disease. “It was an emergency,” Mimi says.

 

Sergio spent nearly a year lying on a couch, growing weaker as his condition worsened. Every week he had to undergo paracentesis, a procedure where doctors drain fluid from the abdomen. “Our closest family friends, Oscar Jimenez and Ali Dhain, were my biggest help,” Mimi says. “They were my backup caregivers.” Their children – Angelina, Lil Sergio, Nicholas, and Jesus – stepped in however they could.

 

But the year wasn’t finished dealing blows.

 

In July 2019, Sergio’s brother José was murdered. The loss rocked the entire family, and the community José had worked so hard to serve. “It was a rough year,” Mimi says simply. Sergio adds, “My brother was a great person. An awesome person. He did so much for so many; it’s unbelievable.”

 

As Sergio’s liver disease worsened, doctors in California delivered devastating news. 

“They said they couldn’t do anything for me,” Sergio recalls. His doctors directed him to the Mayo Clinic and reassured him, “They will save your life there.’”

 

Meanwhile, their oldest son stepped forward, determined to become Sergio’s living donor. He trained, improved his health, and passed the medical screenings. But the surgery Sergio needed was too complex.

 

Eventually a transplant became the only option. The only drawback? California has one of the longest transplant waiting lists in the country.

 

But the Mayo Clinic team remained confident.

 

“They kept saying, ‘You are getting a liver,’” Mimi remembers.

 

Finally, after nearly five months on the transplant list, the call came. The surgery was scheduled for November 20, 2024, just days before Thanksgiving. Mimi’s best friend, Elena LaRoque, surprised her and flew into Arizona so she wouldn’t be alone waiting during Sergio’s surgery. 

 

The family gathered in the waiting room as updates arrived by text.  “The old liver is out, and the new liver is in,” one message read.  There were high-fives, tears, and prayers.

 

The surgery took place on Wednesday. He was walking the next morning.  By Sunday, Sergio was discharged from the hospital.

 

The medical team had a nickname for him. “They called him the unicorn.”

 

It was during that surgery that Sergio experienced something he can’t explain. It changed his perspective. 

 

“When we are alive, we worry about the bills, the house, the job,” Sergio reflects. “We lose sleep over everything.”

 

Then he learned the truth.

 

“Until your health gets challenged, none of it matters,” he says. Now he focuses on what truly counts: family, friends, helping others, and continuing the work his brother José began.

 

“My brother was a great person,” Sergio says. “He did so much for so many.”  That legacy still drives him today.

 

Because after seeing paradise, Sergio Arredondo knows something most of us only wonder about. The best things in life aren’t the things we own. They’re the lives we touch along the way.