Additional Coverage:
- Tatiana Schlossberg, daughter of Caroline Kennedy, has died (abcnews.go.com)
Tatiana Schlossberg, Granddaughter of JFK, Passes Away at 35 After Battle with Terminal Cancer
Boston, MA – Tatiana Schlossberg, the accomplished environmental journalist and granddaughter of President John F. Kennedy, has passed away at the age of 35 following a courageous fight with terminal cancer.
The JFK Library Foundation confirmed her passing in a statement on Tuesday, expressing, “Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts.”
Schlossberg, daughter of Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg, revealed her diagnosis of a rare mutation of acute myeloid leukemia in an emotional essay published in The New Yorker last month. She was diagnosed in May 2024, shortly after the birth of her second child.
In her poignant essay, Schlossberg shared the devastating news from her doctor regarding her prognosis. “During the latest clinical trial, my doctor told me that he could keep me alive for a year, maybe,” she wrote. Her immediate concern was for her young children: “My first thought was that my kids, whose faces live permanently on the inside of my eyelids, wouldn’t remember me.”
She further reflected on the precious moments she might miss with her children. “My son might have a few memories, but he’ll probably start confusing them with pictures he sees or stories he hears,” she penned.
The challenges of her illness also impacted her ability to care for her daughter. “I didn’t ever really get to take care of my daughter — I couldn’t change her diaper or give her a bath or feed her, all because of the risk of infection after my transplants.
I was gone for almost half of her first year of life. I don’t know who, really, she thinks I am, and whether she will feel or remember, when I am gone, that I am her mother.”
Schlossberg concluded her powerful essay by emphasizing her desire to “live and be with” her children, acknowledging the difficulty of staying present amidst her battle. “But being in the present is harder than it sounds, so I let the memories come and go,” she wrote.
“So many of them are from my childhood that I feel as if I’m watching myself and my kids grow up at the same time. Sometimes I trick myself into thinking I’ll remember this forever, I’ll remember this when I’m dead.
Obviously, I won’t. But since I don’t know what death is like and there’s no one to tell me what comes after it, I’ll keep pretending.
I will keep trying to remember.”
Tatiana Schlossberg is survived by her husband, George Moran, their young son and daughter, her parents Caroline Kennedy and Ed Schlossberg, and her siblings Rose and Jack Schlossberg.
Journalist and commentator Maria Shriver, a relative of Schlossberg, shared a heartfelt tribute, remembering her as “valiant, strong, courageous.” Shriver lauded Schlossberg’s journalistic contributions, stating, “Tatiana was a great journalist, and she used her words to educate others about the earth and how to save it.”
She added, “Tatiana was the light, the humor, the joy. She was smart, wicked smart, as they say, and sassy.
She was fun, funny[,] loving, caring, a perfect daughter, sister, mother, cousin, niece, friend, all of it…”
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- Tatiana Schlossberg, daughter of Caroline Kennedy, has died (abcnews.go.com)