Jack Schlossberg, grandson of the legendary John F. Kennedy, turned to Instagram to pay a touching tribute to his late sister, Tatiana Schlossberg. His heartfelt message was a poignant reminder of her passion and dedication to environmental journalism.
On Monday, he posted ten excerpts of poems and famous texts, along with a picture of himself with his sister when they were younger. He captioned the post with a single emoji of a cherry blossom flower.
Schlossberg’s tribute was meticulously crafted, with each slide in his Instagram post displaying a uniform font and style, reflecting the care and thought he put into honoring his sister’s memory. This thoughtful presentation underscored the deep bond they shared and his respect for her work.
Central to the tribute was an excerpt from Tatiana’s own writings, taken from her 2019 book, “Inconspicuous Consumption.” This work delves into the often-overlooked environmental impacts of daily consumer habits, showcasing her commitment to raising awareness and advocating for change.
As an environmental journalist, Tatiana was driven by a mission to improve the world, a sentiment powerfully captured in the excerpt shared by her brother. Her words resonate with a call to action: “It’s up to us to create a country that takes seriously its obligations to the planet, to each other, and to the people who will be born into a world that looks different than ours has for the past 10,000 years or so,” she wrote.
She acknowledged the challenges ahead, candidly stating, “Essentially, what I’m describing is hard work with possibly limited success for the rest of your life. But we have to do it, and at least we will have the satisfaction of knowing we made things better.” Her legacy, as encapsulated by these words, continues to inspire those committed to environmental stewardship and change.
‘Essentially, what I’m describing is hard work with possibly limited success for the rest of your life. But we have to do it, and at least we will have the satisfaction of knowing we made things better.
‘Come on, it will be fun (?),’ the excerpt concluded.
Jack Schlossberg, grandson of John F Kennedy and brother to the recently deceased Tatiana Schlossberg, recently shared a heartfelt tribute to his sister on Instagram
Tatiana Schlossberg, the granddaughter of JFK, died from blood cancer at the age of 35, just six weeks after she revealed her diagnosis
Tatiana’s brother posted this picture of himself with his sister when the two were younger in his tribute on Instagram
This image was the first slide in Schlossberg’s tribute, and it was of his sister’s own words
Tatiana died from blood cancer on December 30 when she was 35 years old. She had announced her diagnosis just six weeks earlier, revealing that doctors told her she had acute myeloid leukemia in May 2024.
Writing in the New Yorker, Tatiana said she had no symptoms and was ‘one of the healthiest people I knew’ when the shock diagnosis came.
Doctors only found the disease through routine blood tests after she gave birth to her second child.
She was the daughter of Caroline Kennedy, whose parents were John F Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy, and designer Edwin Schlossberg.
It is the latest tragedy to befall Caroline, who lost her father to an assassin’s bullet when she was five years old, her only sibling, JFK Jr, in a plane crash years later, and her mother to lymphoma in 1994, when the iconic former first lady was just 64.
Tatiana said her parents and her siblings, Rose and Jack, supported her through months of grueling medical treatments, which she described as ‘a great gift, even though I feel their pain every day.’
She also addressed the so-called ‘Kennedy curse’ in her essay, saying that she did not want to add ‘a new tragedy’ to her mother Caroline’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,’ Schlossberg wrote.
Siblings Jack and Tatiana in an image posted on his Instagram page
This excerpt and those below were also included in Schlossberg’s tribute post
‘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.’
In Schlossberg’s tribute post, the brother shared an excerpt from Moby Dick about the immortality of whales, as well as some writings of Abraham Lincoln, including the Gettysburg Address.
He also shared poems by Alfred Lord Tennyson, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost and Rita S Beer.
The other slides included the Buddha’s last words and a quote from John F Kennedy that said: ‘There are three things in life which are real: God, human folly and laughter.
‘Since the first two are beyond our comprehension, we must do what we can with the third.’
Schlossberg’s post received nearly 40,000 likes in three hours and more than 1,000 comments, which were overwhelmingly supportive.
Many users posted heart emojis and broken heart emojis, and hundreds more shared their sympathies, condolences and grief.
