Tatiana Schlossberg Was Heartbroken to Add ‘Another Tragedy’ to Mom Caroline Kennedy’s Life

In a deeply personal essay published in November 2025, Tatiana Schlossberg shared the news that she was dying—and with it, a quiet anguish that cut just as sharply as her diagnosis. One of her greatest regrets, she wrote, was the pain her illness would bring to her mother, Caroline Kennedy, whose life has already been shaped by extraordinary loss.

Tatiana, the middle child of Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg, died on Dec. 30 at the age of 35. Her family announced her death on social media, writing, “Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts.”

In her essay, Tatiana revealed that she had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia shortly after giving birth to her second child, a daughter. She learned of her illness while still hospitalized following the delivery. Tatiana and her husband, George Moran, whom she married in 2017, were also parents to a young son.

Writing with clarity and restraint, Tatiana reflected on the cruelty of timing—becoming a mother again just as she was told her life would be cut short. One of her deepest sorrows, she explained, was knowing her children were too young to truly remember her.

She also returned again and again to thoughts of her mother. Caroline Kennedy, the only surviving child of President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy, has endured a lifetime marked by public tragedy and private grief. Tatiana described how she had spent much of her life trying to protect her mother from further pain.

“For my whole life, I have tried to be good, to be a good student and a good sister and a good daughter, and to protect my mother and never make her upset or angry,” she wrote.

Caroline Kennedy was just days away from her sixth birthday when her father was assassinated. Decades later, she lost her brother, John F. Kennedy Jr., in a plane crash, along with his wife and sister-in-law. Other members of the Kennedy family have also died young or under tragic circumstances.

“Now I have added a new tragedy to her life, to our family’s life, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it,” Tatiana wrote.

In the months before her death, Tatiana said she was determined to focus on the people she loved most—especially her husband and children. She wrote tenderly of George, praising his devotion and care during her treatment.

“He is perfect,” she wrote, adding that she felt devastated knowing she would not be able to continue the life they had built together. She described the sadness of leaving behind “this kind, funny, handsome genius” and the future they had imagined.

Yet it was her children who occupied her thoughts most intensely. When a doctor told her she might have only a year to live, her first instinct was to think of them—and of how little they would remember.

“My son might have a few memories,” she wrote, “but he’ll probably start confusing them with pictures he sees or stories he hears.”

Her daughter, born just before her diagnosis, weighed especially heavily on her heart. Because of the risk of infection during treatment, Tatiana was unable to care for her in the ways she had imagined.

“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,” she wrote. “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.”

In the face of that uncertainty, Tatiana said she tried to remain present, even when it felt nearly impossible. Memories—especially of her own childhood—often surfaced, blurring past and present.

“Sometimes I trick myself into thinking I’ll remember this forever, I’ll remember this when I’m dead,” she wrote. “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.”

Her words now stand as both a farewell and a quiet testament to love, grief, and the fragile act of holding on.