Earlier this week, we reported that Tatiana Schlossberg, the granddaughter of John F. Kennedy and the daughter of Caroline Kennedy, had died after a battle with cancer. She was only 35 years-old.
Now, insiders are saying that Caroline plans to “keep her daughter Tatiana’s memory alive” for the late writer’s two young children. Caroline will reportedly follow in the footsteps of her mother Jackie Kennedy, who kept her father’s memory alive for her two children after his 1963 assassination.
Tatiana Passes Away
Tatiana, who was the second of Caroline and Edwin Schlossberg’s three children, died on Tuesday, December 30. This came one month after Tatiana had revealed that she had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.
“Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts,” read a statement posted to Instagram. It was signed by “George, Edwin and Josephine Moran, Ed, Caroline, Jack, Rose and Rory.”
Tatiana was the mother of a three year-old son and a one year-old daughter. Now, Caroline is determined to make sure that they never forget their mother.
“Caroline is going to have to do for Tatiana’s children what Jackie had to do for her children. Keep the memory alive of their parent that they might not remember,” a Kennedy family friend told People Magazine.
“[Caroline] is going to end up having to do the same thing her mother did with her and John, along with Tatiana’s husband, in raising those kids,” the family friend continued. “She’s going to have to try to preserve her memory and make sure they know about her and make sure they remember her.”
“It’s tragic, and she has a playbook,” the family friend added. “What I know of Caroline is that she will carry Tatiana’s memory for the rest of her life. She will make sure that Tatiana is remembered, and that’s a gift, to have a family like that.”
Kennedy Family Tragedies
The Kennedy family has sadly endured many tragedies over the years. Indeed, President John F. Kennedy was infamously assassinated in 1963. His son John F. Kennedy Jr., who was Schlossberg’s uncle, later died in a plane crash in 1999. Schlossberg admitted in her essay that she was struggling with the knowledge that her terminal cancer diagnosis was bringing more grief to her family.
Tatiana revealed her terminal cancer diagnosis in an essay published by The New Yorker in November of 2025. In it, she lamented that she was adding a “new tragedy” to her mother’s life.
“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,” Tatiana wrote. “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’s Focus On Her Children
When a doctor informed Schlossberg that she had “a year, maybe” to live, her first thought was that “my kids, whose faces live permanently on the inside of my eyelids, wouldn’t remember me.”
“My son might have a few memories, but he’ll probably start confusing them with pictures he sees or stories he hears,” she predicted.
Tatiana spent her final months desperately trying to make memories with her children.
“Mostly, I try to live and be with them now,” she wrote. “But being in the present is harder than it sounds, so I let the memories come and go. 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,” Tatiana stated. “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.”
This has clearly been a very difficult time for Caroline and her family. Please join us in saying a prayer for them.
Rest in peace, Tatiana Schlossberg. You will never be forgotten.