Caroline Kennedy will help raise Tatiana Schlossberg's children to keep their mother's memory alive

It was a haunting photo that pulled at the heartstrings.

As the funeral service for Caroline Kennedy's daughter Tatiana Schlossberg came to an end, the daughter of US president John F Kennedy and his wife Jackie left the New York church with her baby granddaughter in her arms.

Now it has been revealed that Kennedy will step in and help raise Schlossberg's two young children following their mother's death at the age of 35 to keep her memory alive.

Schlossberg's death is the latest tragedy to befall the famed Kennedy family.

Caroline Kennedy's father John F Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, when Caroline was five and her younger brother, John Jr was three.

Just five years later, her uncle, Senator Robert F Kennedy, was also assassinated.

Then in 1999, her brother, his wife and his wife's sister died when the plane he was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the family's compound on Martha's Vineyard.

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His death came five years after the siblings lost their mother, the iconic Jackie Kennedy Onassis, at 64 following her own battle with another form of blood cancer, non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Kennedy, 68, the former ambassador to Australia, has endured much heartache in her life but will reportedly draw on her large reserves of inner strength to be there for her family when they need her most.

Schlossberg was the daughter of Kennedy and her husband Edwin Schlossberg. They also share another daughter, Rose, and a son, Jack.

She met George Moran while they were both students at Yale University and married in 2017.

They shared two young children, Edwin, who is just three, and Josephine, who is just 19 months old.

It was immediately following Josephine's birth in May 2024 that Schlossberg, a journalist and author, learned she had cancer.

She wrote about her diagnosis in an essay published by her former employer The New York Times last November.

She said her doctor noticed an imbalance in her white blood cell count and ordered tests that revealed she had a rare mutation of acute myeloid leukemia known as Inversion 3.

She wrote that she could not believe her diagnosis when it was first delivered.

"I did not – could not – believe that they were talking about me," she wrote.

"I had swum a mile in the pool the day before, nine months pregnant. I wasn't sick. I didn't feel sick. I was actually one of the healthiest people I knew."

But soon it would become too real. She underwent chemotherapy, two stem cell transplants and a clinical trial of CAR-T cell therapy.

At one point, doctors told her she had less than a year to live.

She wrote in her essay about her regret at adding to her mother's heartache.

"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.

"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."

As the disease and the treatment ravaged her body, Schlossberg and her young family moved in with her mother and father.

She revealed in her essay she was unable to "pick up my children" or care for her infant daughter due to the risk of infection.

"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," she wrote.

Her death was announced by the JFK Library Foundation, set up in memory of her grandfather, US President John F Kennedy, on December 30 – just one month after she revealed in her essay she was battling the disease.

Yesterday, she was laid to rest following a private funeral service at the Church of St Ignatius of Loyola in the Upper East Side neighbourhood in New York.

It was attended by members of the Kennedy clan as well as former US president Joe Biden.

Her cousin, controversial Trump administration health secretary Robert Kennedy Jr – whom she criticised in her essay – did not attend.

Instead, it was left to her mother to represent the Kennedy name and provide a symbol of resilience during unimaginable heartache as she carried her baby granddaughter from the church.

Kennedy historian Steven M Gillon told People, "When you think about the losses Caroline has suffered, it was only [her brother] John that had suffered the same – and then she lost John.

"For Caroline, it's a series of horrible personal tragedies that lead up to what may be the hardest of them all.

"Tatiana's son is the same age that John was when he lost his dad. Tragically, history is repeating itself."

A family friend revealed it will be Caroline Kennedy who will now step up and help raise her grandchildren, and make sure they remember their mother.

They will have very few memories to rely on.

One is a poignant photo of Schlossberg with her young family that was published on the JFK Library Foundation's Instagram page hours before her funeral.

It showed Schlossberg with the husband and two young children she left behind and was reportedly taken at the Kennedy family estate in Martha's Vineyard in September – the same place where the couple wed eight years earlier.

"As we remember Tatiana and celebrate her life, our hearts are with her family and all who loved her," the caption read.

The image by photographer Elizabeth Cecil showed a smiling Schlossberg seated on the grass with Moran, their children and a family dog.

It was released one week after the foundation announced her death on its Instagram page.

"Our beautiful Tatiana passed away this morning. She will always be in our hearts," the post read, which was signed by George, Edwin and Josephine Moran and Ed, Caroline, Jack, Rose and Rory.

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