Sixteen years ago, a momentous day arrived for the Medina family. Mario and his daughters, Maris and Mariella, boarded a flight from the Philippines to a new life in the United States.
Maris was 5, her sister 4 — bright-eyed girls who followed their dad’s every move.
“My father always reinforced a sense of family because when we came to America it was just us, no other family or friends,” said the now 22-year-old Maris, an aspiring journalist and 2020 graduate from the University of Maryland.
The Medinas came to the United States seeking a better life.
“Our dad reunited us with our mom, who moved here months earlier to take a nursing job at a hospital in Washington, D.C.,” Maris recalled. The Medinas became naturalized U.S. citizens in 2008.
“It was a big adjustment for all of us,” Mario told VOA. It was a transition for his family and his own career. Mario would join his wife, Doris, in the health care sector. “I was a civil engineer in the Philippines but studied to be a registered nurse after coming to the United States.”
Cross-generational ties
Mario was 32 when he and Doris had Maris.
“It was a life experience to have our first baby and the first grandchild on the maternal side. We were excited,” he said, adding that the father-daughter bond has grown stronger year after year.
That bond manifests itself in ways both profound and mundane.
“I am super forgetful,” Maris said, smiling at her dad. “Sometimes I come home for the weekend and leave something behind. My dad would drive 45 minutes back to my place, even if it was a makeup bag. It’s the little things that make him so special.”
Facing the pandemic together
The pandemic has upended countless lives, including those of front-line health care providers tending to COVID-19 patients.
“Nursing is stressful job, especially now if you don’t know how to handle it,” Mario said.
The stress grew when Maris’ sister, Mariella, a patient care advocate, contracted the coronavirus earlier this month.
“The hardest part being a health care worker is one of your family members contracting the virus. It is scary,” Mario said.
Maris said the family is taking extra precautions. “The basement of our home is now used to change out their hospital uniforms and sanitize clothing,” she said.
Self-quarantining while her parents continued working at a Washington hospital, Maris produced a community video honoring them and other health care workers.
“I had to wake up at 5:30 a.m. to film them going off to work,” she said. “Seeing them leave for the hospital is hard because I know there’s a huge chance they’re coming in contact with COVID patients.”
Maris worries but tries to stay grounded in these uncertain times and looks to her father for comfort. “He’s not always trying to offer me advice but tells me to calm down,” she said.
A Father’s Day tradition
The pandemic has brought huge interruptions to their routine and necessitated difficult adjustments for a close-knit family. For Father’s Day, a long-overdue outing is planned with extra precautions to ensure social distancing.
“We always take him [Mario] out to dinner, but this year we decided to take a day trip to Virginia Beach,” Maris said.
With more time at home together, Maris and Mario discuss the future, including Maris’ passion for journalism.
“He is supportive of me shaping my own career path with no pressure to become a nurse,” she said, adding that she does not completely rule out ultimately following in her parents’ footsteps. “If I need to make a midlife career shift and become a nurse, I know I can do it because my dad did it.”
Maris is also thankful for her dad’s emphasis on the family’s heritage.
“He’s instilled in me the values of wanting to help others and maintaining family traditions of growing up in a Filipino household. My dad never lets me forget my upbringing.”
