Journalist and writer Tatiana Kennedy Schlossberg, granddaughter of the late President John F. Kennedy
Writer Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of the late President John F. Kennedy, died this Tuesday, a few weeks after announcing that she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, the JFK Library Foundation reported this Tuesday.
“Our dear Tatiana left this morning. He will always be in our hearts”, reads one of the family published this Tuesday on the institution’s Instagram account, accompanied by an image of Tatiana Schlossberg.
Schlossberg, 35, revealed in November, in an essay published in the magazine, that she was diagnosed myeloid leukemia acute in May 2024, shortly after the birth of their second child.
In the essay, the young American writer said she had the idea that she would probably would lose his battle against cancerand did not hesitate to make strong criticisms of his cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr.the current Secretary of Health of the United States, whom , like her, through his policies.
Schlossberg underwent strenuous treatmentsincluding chemotherapy, bone marrow transplants and a immunotherapy clinical trialbut the cancer returned; would eventually receive the prognosis of just one year to livereported.
The writer published her essay announcing the diagnosis precisely 62 years after his grandfather’s murder. In the text, he revealed that he struggled with the impact of the diagnosis on his family.
“During tAll my life I tried to be goodbeing a good student, a good sister, a good daughter, protecting my mother and never making her worried or angry. Now I added a new tragedy to her lifeto the life of our family, and there is nothing I can do to avoid it”, he wrote.
Tatiana was the second of Edwin Schlossberg’s three children and Caroline Kennedywho was just 5 years old when his father, the president John F. Kennedywas in Dallas, on November 22, 1963.
The Kennedy family would once again be struck by tragedy when Caroline’s younger brother, John F. Kennedy Jr.died in a plane crash in 1999, giving strength to a belief that is popularly called “” — of which there is no shortage of examples.
Robert F. Kennedybrother of the failed president and father of the current US Secretary of Health, was shot dead in 1968on the night he celebrated the victory in the California Democratic Party primaries for the presidential elections. In 1984, David Kennedy, Robert’s son, died of a drug overdose, and in 1997 another of his sons, Michaeldied in a skiing accident.
Em 1999, John Kennedy Jrson of President JFK, his wife Carolyn and sister-in-law died when a small plane crashed off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. In 2011, Mary Richardsonwife of current Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., committed suicide. And in 2020, Saoirse Kennedy Hillone of the granddaughters of Robert F. Kennedy, aged 22, due to an alleged overdose.
The plans that cancer stole from you
Schlossberg, who made a career as an environmental journalist and author, revealed that she had a project in mind before cancer changed his plans. “My plan, If I hadn’t gotten sick, I would have written a book about the oceans — about their destruction, but also about the possibilities they offer”, he wrote in the essay.
“During treatment, I discovered that one of my chemotherapy drugs, cytarabine, exists thanks to a marine animal: a sponge that lives in the Caribbean Sea, the Tectitethya crypt“, said the writer.
“This discovery was made by scientists at the University of Californiain Berkeley, who first synthesized the drug in 1959, almost certainly with state funding, precisely what Bobby already cut”, he highlighted, in a reference to the health policies of his cousin, RFK Jr.
After her diagnosis, Schlossberg focused on spending time with her family, particularly her young children. “Above allI try to live and be with themnow”, he wrote. “But Being in the present is harder than it seemsso I let the memories come and go. Many are from my childhood, and I feel like I’m watching myself and my children grow up at the same time.”
“Sometimes, andI fool myself into thinking I’ll remember this foreverthat I will remember this after I die. Obviously, I won’t. But since I don’t know what death is like and there’s no one who can tell me what comes next, I continue to pretend. I keep trying to remember”, he concluded.
Tatiana Kennedy Schlossberg leaves behind her husband, George Moran, whom she married in September 2017, and the couple’s two children, a boy, born in 2022, and a girl, born in May 2024.
