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Martha Melendez wrote a e book in January, identical to she at all times knew her mom would do.
Martha Melendez
You might know Melendez from his 2024 e book. Aspiring agents: From overworked rookie to real estate rock star. Or possibly you acknowledge her from her look HGTV’s my lottery dream house, from stage appearances in WomanUP! Or Engel & Völkers’ EVX Her Convention — she’s been her Engel & Völkers’ agent in Melbourne for practically six years.
After assembly Melendez for the primary time, WomanUP! In 2022And as she advised her story as a home violence survivor, two issues actually stood out. It is that she’s a fierce, sincere, profitable girl, and he or she credit all of that to her mom.
mom’s love
“My mom has at all times been my rock, my all the pieces,” Melendez advised Inman.
Marta Melendez and her mom Maria Clementina Perdomo
“She was forward of her time. She wore denims earlier than anybody else. She reduce her hair, as a result of all girls at the moment had been shaving their heads. [long hair] …She was unbiased to a fault. “She at all times felt like she was succesful, she by no means wanted a person to inform her what to do, and he or she by no means wished to get married,” she mentioned. . And she or he did not.
When Meléndez was a baby rising up in Colombia, academics dictated all the pieces in school, so college students took copious notes. Meléndez’s girlfriend, Maria Clementina Perdomo, would take Meléndez’s notebooks from her faculty yearly and have them certain in her hardcover, leather-bound e book. She nonetheless has it.
“As a result of she had a imaginative and prescient. She wished me to be a author. However she by no means mentioned that to me,” Melendez mentioned.
Melendez mentioned Perdomo lived in Colombia within the Nineteen Eighties and noticed the drug cartels develop in energy, and Perdomo bought all the pieces, although neither he nor Melendez spoke English. He’s mentioned to have immigrated to america.
Mr. Perdomo had already retired in Colombia, however took a manufacturing facility job in america that paid $3 an hour. Melendez ended up working along with her the summer season she turned 14.
Realizing the necessity to modify to her new house, Melendez mentioned she enrolled her mom in English courses on Mondays and Wednesdays on the Hispanic Heart in downtown Mount Holly, New Jersey.
They walked two miles to class after work and faculty, and Melendez attended class and advised the instructor that she did not know if her mom would be capable to discover her approach house. She knew that her mom would want to study English on this new life, so she absorbed all the pieces.
Melendez then discovered that she was instructing English to adults at the highschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so she signed up. Her mom could not study English, however Melendez did. She discovered find out how to write checks, deal with physician’s appointments and hire an condo.
“It has been such a tremendous journey for my mother and I. I feel that is why I at all times speak about her, as a result of it is at all times been my mother and me,” Melendez mentioned.
robust occasions
Marta Melendez and her mom Maria Clementina Perdomo
Melendez married on the age of 18. Her marriage was abusive, and the younger couple rented a room and not using a rest room whereas Melendez was six months pregnant and labored two jobs to make ends meet. I had a tough time. She usually relied on canned espresso.
“Due to God, I used to be in a position to get out alive. Lots of people do not try this,” Melendez advised Inman. “I needed to go all the best way there to open my eyes. I feel I am nonetheless there with a can of Folgers.”
A therapist as soon as advised her that if she may inform a narrative with out crying, she was healed from it. She advised her story for the primary time on WomanUP! Folgers will probably be obtainable on stage.
“It took me years to get well from that wound. I did not need to be a sufferer. And I did not need to be a survivor, as a result of that is when you may have the trauma of getting survived. And I wished to thrive. I did not need to be the woman who acquired hit. How can we alter that narrative?” Melendez advised Inman.
“I am glad I acquired by it as a result of that have made me a stronger particular person and I can acknowledge that and assist others,” she mentioned.
Make your mother’s dream come true
In 1998, Melendez reunited together with his 1992 promenade date, Lucien Melendez. He wooed her so laborious he purchased her a automotive and a home and moved to Florida, the place she married in 2000 and had two extra kids.
Melendez earned her actual property license in 2005 whereas instructing English as a second language. Lucian Melendez is at the moment an assistant principal at a highschool in Viera, Florida.
Perdomo was by her daughter’s aspect throughout this comfortable chapter of a brand new starting. However sadly, she handed away on October 28, 2020. Melendez says it wasn’t till she misplaced her mom that she actually realized all of the sacrifices she had made.
Martha Melendez and daughter Alexandra Villa
In January 2024, Melendez revealed her first e book, fulfilling her mom’s dream. Aspiring agents: From overworked rookie to real estate rock star. It is a e book she needs she had had when she began her actual property enterprise.
It is the proper how-to for Melendez’s 29-year-old daughter, Alexandra Villa, who started her actual property profession in November 2023.
On lengthy drives, Ms. Melendez would learn books to Villa and talk about them collectively, and Villa would typically quote recommendation from the books to her mom. Presently, Villa works within the workplace of her mom, a member of the Engel & Völkers household.
Melendez mentioned it feels just like the cycle is repeating itself. “I labored along with her mom and now [Alexandra] It is possible for you to to work with me. Now that she’s an grownup, I want she may develop a deeper relationship along with her. I’m pleased with her mom like her and I hope that in the future she is going to do the identical for her daughter and we can have a 3rd technology of actual property brokers. ”
E-mail Dani Vanderborg
