Tatiana Schlossberg, who took the last breath at the age of 35, revealed her cancer a month ago only in an essay in “The New Yorker.”In the essay, she said that her doctors had told her that she might survive for about another year. And on December 30, Schlossberg died. In that essay, she also criticised policies pushed by her cousin, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.Schlossberg, an environmental journalist and the daughter of Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg, said she was diagnosed in May 2024 at 34. After the birth of her second child, her doctor noticed her white blood cell count was high, which turned out to be acute myeloid leukaemia with a rare mutation mostly seen in older people.Her essay was published on the 62nd anniversary of her grandfather’s assassination.Schlossberg wrote she underwent rounds of chemotherapy and two stem cell transplants, the first using cells from her sister and the next from an unrelated donor, and participated in clinical trials. During the latest trial, she wrote, her doctor told her “he could keep me alive for a year, maybe.”Schlossberg also said policies backed by RFK could hurt cancer patients like her, and Caroline Kennedy urged senators to reject his confirmation. “As I spent more and more of my life under the care of doctors, nurses, and researchers striving to improve the lives of others, I watched as Bobby cut nearly a half billion dollars for research into mRNA vaccines, technology that could be used against certain cancers,” the essay reads.Schlossberg wrote about her fears that her daughter and son will not remember her. She felt cheated and sad that she would not get to keep living “the wonderful life” she had with her husband, George Moran. While her parents and siblings tried to hide their pain from her, she said she felt it every day.“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 said. “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.”
