Wanderwoman Diaries: A Story of Resilience
This week we visit with Talar, whom I met in a women’s empowerment room on the new social media darling, Clubhouse. Since I’m can’t meet people traveling the world for the time being, it’s beyond amazing to connect with like minded women on new and innovative platforms. Talar is a lawyer by trade, but also a sociopreneur and author. She has a very interesting and heartwarming story and like the other women featured has found a country that she calls home.
Name
Talar Herculian Coursey
Originally From
Lebanon
Current Country
USA (Salt Lake City, Utah)
How many countries have you lived in?
10
What brought you to your current country?
I was born in Beirut, Lebanon to Armenian parents.
My mother is Armenian from Jerusalem. My father was an Armenian from Khederbeck, Turkey (later to Anjar, Lebanon). He died in 2006 while visiting Anjar, during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. My father started working for ARAMCO (Arabian Amercian Oil Company) in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia as an English teacher shortly after he and my mother married.
The civil war was raging in Lebanon and my parents moved to Saudi Arabia in the hopes that they could work there for a few years until the civil war ended. The war did not end for 15 years. In the meantime, they had raised my brother and I as “Americans” in Saudi Arabia. We lived in an American compound with American expats and attending an American school, Dhahran Academy.
Our life in Saudi Arabia was like the “Leave it to Beaver” America in the middle of the Arabian desert, with a fence around it. However, we were not American and didn’t even visit America until 1982. Our passport was Lebanese and our ethnicity was Armenian. We spoke Armenian and English but never learned Arabic, the national language in Lebanon.
My American school in Saudi Arabia only went to the 9th grade. After the 9th grade, my parents would have to send me to boarding school in either Europe or the U.S. My family immigrated to Southern California in 1986 when I was in the 7th grade so that they would not have to send me to boarding school.
WHAT CHALLENGES HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED BEING RAISED IN SAUDI ARABIA?
I have always been a foreigner wherever I’ve lived and have struggled with my identity. The worst question anyone could ask me was “where are you from?” because I don’t know. I was born in Beirut to Armenian parents from Jerusalem and Turkey, raised in Saudi Arabia as an American.
I don’t know where I’m from.
WHAT IS YOUR MOST MEMORABLE TRAVEL EXPERIENCE?
On July 13, 2006, a war started between Israel and Hezbollah after Hezbollah kidnapped three Israeli soldiers. The U.S. was evacuating Americans out of Beirut. My dad was about an hour away but I hoped that he could find a way to get there and join the evacuating Americans. I made desperate pleas to my dad to leave but he insisted that this skirmish would blow over quickly, like many of the others in the past. It didn’t end until August 20, 2006.
At the beginning of August, my dad called me to tell me that he had fallen ill and that it was time for him to come home. We didn’t know what was wrong because the hospital had turned him away since the doctors had fled. My dad said that he asked me because I was “scrappy.” This was the greatest compliment my dad could give me but it also felt like an overwhelming responsibility. I promised him that I would get him home but I had no idea how I was going to do this in the middle of a war.
I reached out to everyone for help – friends, colleagues, Congressmen, Embassy, Doctors without Borders and the list goes on. The kindness of people was heartwarming. Complete strangers went out of their way to help. One of my colleagues had a contact who had a contact in the Lebanese army. My dad called later to tell me that someone from the army had called him to talk about getting him out of Lebanon in a military tank.
On a warm August night in Irvine, California, I got a call from my cousin in Lebanon, who had been caring for my dad. He told me that my dad was on his deathbed and that I needed to come now if I wanted to see him before he died. I was in shock. I knew that he was sick, but I had no idea that it was so serious. There was no time to think. I had to act quickly. I hung up the phone and called my brother. I told him that I was going to Lebanon tomorrow. I didn’t have tickets and didn’t know how I was going to get there, but I was going to do it. “I’m coming with you,” he said. After we told our mother, she insisted that she was coming too. Me, my brother and mother flew into Damascus not knowing how we were going to get out of the airport without visas, much less across the border to Lebanon.
When we arrived at our house in Anjar, my dad was alert, though he was lying on a bed in the living room with an oxygen tank. He spoke eagerly about getting to Damascus, oblivious to his state of health. There was no way he was traveling anywhere, but we didn't tell him that.
I sat beside my dad, holding his hand, as he took his final breaths, listening to George Straight’s “Carrying Your Love With Me.” He died on August 10, 2006. Cause of death: unknown.
The next day, we accompanied my dad to our church just up the road from our house. It was the same church that my parents had been married and both me and my brother had been christened. I was now going to deliver my father’s eulogy in that same church that had witnessed so many fond memories from my childhood. My Armenian was rusty and though I wrote the eulogy a few hours earlier in English, I delivered it in Armenian. I was proud of myself. My dad would have been proud of me too.
“I came here to bring my father home,” I said. “But when he died, I realized that he was already home. The soil had called him back.” And so, we buried my father in Lebanon and I have not returned since. My father’s death left an ache in me. I felt grief, loneliness, helplessness and sadness. I wasn’t ready to lose him. I had just gotten to know him as an adult. I didn’t want to forget him and I didn’t want the world to forget him.
I wanted to stay connected to my dad but I couldn’t visit his grave in Lebanon. I searched for another way. I decided to find a charity that I could support in his memory. That’s when I found the Society for Orphaned Armenian relief and have made it my life’s purpose to support these children in my father’s memory.
Is there anywhere you would chose to move to where would that be and why?
If there was peace in the Middle East, I’d love to split my time between the U.S. and the village in Lebanon where I’m from and where I still have a house.
How has the Covid-19 pandemic affected your life?
The pandemic has wrought so much havoc on my life and yet, there are so many silver linings.
As a one-person legal department, the pandemic required me to identify, interpret and apply the avalanche of new laws immediately for the first time in my life, requiring me to start work as early as 3:00 in the morning some days.
My 8 year old son has had to spend way too much time isolated from other children, stuck at home with two adults that are always working. For months, I had to address the urgent legal issues going on at work while homeschooling my son. My only brother had a baby in May 2020 and I haven’t even met him yet, almost a year later. This has been the hardest for me.
I had a daily yoga practice before the pandemic and have not been able to go to my studio for almost a year. On the bright side, I’ve met a fantastic community of lady lawyers on Linked In with whom I co-authored a book on November 1, 2020 called #Networked. My proudest pandemic accomplishment (besides not losing my mind) is my children’s book, Ralphy’s Rules for Living the Good Life, which I wrote to raise money for orphanages in Lebanon (available for pre-order on Amazon).
Based on current travel restrictions are you happy to be where you are or do you wish you were somewhere else?
I’ve been working remotely for 10 years and pre-pandemic, traveled to Southern California once a month to see my boss and co-workers. I have not traveled since February 2020 and miss seeing my boss and co-workers.
Most importantly, however, I wish I could meet my new nephew, Troy, in Southern California.
What are your thoughts on travel right now? When do you plan on traveling? And what are your new guidelines/precautions?
As an emergency substitute teacher for my son’s school, I was invited to get the Covid-19 vaccine. I received my first dose a couple of weeks ago and will get my second dose later this month. I think I will feel safe to travel again after my second dose of the vaccine. My first stop will be Mission Viejo, California to meet my nephew.
What inspires you?
I’m inspired by great thinkers like Brene Brown, Ekhart Tolle, Glennon Doyle and my favorite, Jesus. I’m a Jesus groupie and strive each day to make him proud of me.
Learn more about Talar
Check out her website
Follow her journey on LinkedIn and Instagram. @talaresq
Read her story in #Networked.
Buy her children’s book, Ralphy’s Rules for Living the Good Life, available for pre-order on Amazon.