When I first took notice of Tatiana Schlossberg’s devastating essay in the New Yorker magazine just before Thanksgiving, I was shocked by her announcement that she was dying. The no-nonsense lead − “When you are dying” − gave away the ending to her story, which was confirmed on Dec. 30.

Both in November and now again, Schlossberg became a “trending topic,” which is to say a lot of folks were posting about her, this new tragedy to the Kennedy family, but more than anything, her eloquence in the face of the abyss most of us are terrified by: death.

She is being remembered as a Kennedy scion (Tatiana is a daughter of Caroline Kennedy, and a granddaughter of the late President John F. Kennedy); an environmental journalist and book author; a wife and mother of two; and an outspoken critic of her cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. Health and Human Services secretary whom she described in her essay “as an embarrassment to me and the rest of my immediate family.” (Among his many sins, Schlossberg rightfully accuses RFK Jr. of slashing medical research to harm “millions of cancer survivors, small children, and the elderly.”)

Tatiana Schlossberg’s bravery is something we can learn from

Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of former President John F. Kennedy, speaks at the Profile in Courage Award ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston on Oct. 29, 2023.

Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of former President John F. Kennedy, speaks at the Profile in Courage Award ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston on Oct. 29, 2023.

I didn’t know Schlossberg personally, although like many in this country, I often feel as though the Kennedys (that is, except Bobby Jr.) are part of my extended family. They’ve embodied our highest hopes while suffering the most devastating tragedies.

Over the years, I’d seen Schlossberg’s byline in The New York Times, taking note of her dogged journalism and wondering how, in a family full of Roses and Jacks, she’d been given such a distinctive name, “Tatiana,” a cornerstone character in Alexander Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin,” said to represent the pure, sincere and morally strong Russian soul.

Whether or not her parents intended such a connection is unknown to me, but she most certainly lived up to her Russian namesake in the brave and harrowing narrative of her illness and impending death. At age 34, Schlossberg was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (with a rare mutation called Inversion 3) in May 2024, only hours after giving birth to her daughter.

At first, she was in denial, a state I knew well from my own cancer diagnosis at age 26, writing, “I did not ‒ could not ‒ believe that they were talking about me.”

Reality settled in as Schlossberg underwent what she described as a series of “indignities and humiliations,” a near-fatal postpartum hemorrhage, two bone-marrow transplants, inpatient and at-home chemotherapy, the falling away of her once “great” hair, and the inability to speak or swallow because of the many sores in her mouth.

Once home, after the second transplant, she found she had to learn to walk again and was unable to pick up her children.

She acknowledged, perhaps the greatest heartbreak of all, that she was never able to really take care of her daughter, writing, “I couldn’t change her diaper or give her a bath or feed her, all because of the risk of infection after my transplants.”

How do we measure a life?

Caroline Kennedy’s daughter Tatiana Schlossberg, 35, has died after revealing her terminal cancer diagnosis in a New Yorker essay published Nov. 22. See the granddaughter of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s life in photos, beginning here at the 2023 Profile in Courage Award ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, Oct. 29, 2023.

Tatiana Schlossberg attends her book signing at the In goop Health Summit San Francisco 2019 at Craneway Pavilion on Nov. 16, 2019 in Richmond, Calif.

Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg hugs daughter Tatiana Schlossberg outside the JFK Library after handing out the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award May 22, 2000 in Boston. This year marked the first time Kennedy handed out the award without brother John who was killed in a plane crash last summer.

Tatiana Schlossberg, Caroline Kennedy’s daughter, dies. See her career

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Caroline Kennedy’s daughter Tatiana Schlossberg, 35, has died after revealing her terminal cancer diagnosis in a New Yorker essay published Nov. 22. See the granddaughter of former U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s life in photos, beginning here at the 2023 Profile in Courage Award ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, Oct. 29, 2023.

Schlossberg was away for nearly six months of her daughter’s first year, and anguished in wondering if her daughter would feel or remember who she was after she was gone.

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These poignant insights are a declaration of love unlike any other I’ve known, and recall Pushkin’s Tatiana, who was known to prioritize duty and virtue over personal happiness.

Opinion: I wrote a book on finding joy. Even now, it’s easier than you think.

I’ve often wondered how to understand the measure of a life. Is it the length of it? Or something else?

I’ve come to think it’s something else, and I’m reminded of Nikki Erlick’s beautiful novel “The Measure,” in which Nina, one of the main characters, explains that despite the premature death of her partner, their relationship “felt deep, and it felt whole, despite its length. It was an entire, wonderful tale in and of itself.”

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Schlossberg’s life, despite its brevity, is a wonderful tale in and of itself, and I hope that one day her children will understand that amid their loss and grief.