Commercial Project
Conversations Interrupted | Mahenaz Mahmud

Client
Sabeen Mahmud Archive (SMA)

Deliverable/s
Book Design
Layout Design
Cover Design

Project Description

A note from Sabeen’s mother, Mahenaz Mahmud:

On Friday, 24 April 2015, I lost my daughter Sabeen.

Growing up, I’d heard my father say that the only certainty in life is death, but come to think about it, we didn't ever talk about dying. Death and dying frequently came up in my conversations with Sabeen. When she was little, I prayed she would go before me. I would take the hurt and pain, not her. I don’t know where this thought came from, but it came to me that she would go before me and I talked to her about it many times in 2014. But are we really ever ready to let go? I wasn't.

Someone found what she said, did, and stood up to unacceptable, and decided she had to be censored. As GB Shaw said, the ultimate form of censorship is assassination. We were talking! We were mid-sentence! She was listening one moment and then she wasn't. Gone. Forever. Just like that. In the blink of an eye!

In the five years since, I have written a journal. It was part of my process for coping with my loss and my grief. It helped me keep Sabeen with me. I could talk to her and I believed she was listening.

I am sharing my five-year journal here today as an e-Book - 'Conversations Interrupted'. You can download the book through the link shared above. I am sharing this with you to make it okay to talk about death and dying in our society where these conversations are not easy to have and are frowned upon.

Five years later, I still invoke Sabeen all the time over every little thing, even something as mundane as my laptop charger, on a daily basis. There are no intended words of wisdom here or inspiration or guidance.

If it helps anyone dealing with loss to read this, I will be truly gratified.

Mahenaz Mahmud