Tatiana Schlossberg’s essay about her leukemia diagnosis, A Battle With My Blood, was published in The New Yorker yesterday (the anniversary of her grandfather John F. Kennedy’s assassination). It’s one of the most brilliant pieces of memoir I’ve ever had the chance to read.
In recent years, both a great-niece and one of my closest friends died of the acute leukemia that now plagues Schlossberg. What most moved me about her piece is how she integrated medical facts into her personal story and vice versa. It’s an amazingly full spectrum description not only of her experience, but the experience of so many who suffer as she does. My friend Bruce was also at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York, and I saw firsthand the heroism and compassion that go on there every day. My sister died of breast cancer in 1994, and I witnessed the heartbreak of a mother having to leave her small children. I can only imagine the tears that fell from Tatiana’s eyes as she wrote.
Given that Schlossberg is Caroline Kennedy’s daughter, her diagnosis feels like family news to millions of America. But this essay is going to speak to many, many people beyond that. I’ve never seen anyone nail the emotional complexities of a terminal diagnosis so brilliantly since John Gunther’s memoir Death Be Not Proud. Whether her life be short or long, she has given a gift to the world.
Everyone is talking about Schlossberg’s “terminal diagnosis,” and obviously the medical facts of her case support that. But I believe in miracles, I’ve seen those as well, so I don’t want to describe her situation that way. I hold open the possibility that she will have one of those spontaneous remissions that, while unexplained, do clearly occur.
One of the more painful aspects of Tatiana’s article is her understandable heartbreak at not having had the chance to live out her full potential. As an author she had wanted to write a book about the oceans, how knowing more about them could help the world. I hope someone can convince her that with this essay she did help the world. Her words are searing truths that go straight for the heart and her words will never die.
May she and her family be comforted in this hour of their agony.
Dear God,
Please restore Tatiana
to the fullness of her life.
Amen
And so it is. Amen. That is high praise coming from you Marianne about her writing. Bless her soul. And will read now repeatedly. 🙏
Thank you, Marianne, for sharing this. I never would’ve seen the New Yorker piece without you. She’s part of the ocean too, connected to all of us, just as you’ve always taught through A Course in Miracles. I’m holding her in my prayers and keeping hope close for her full remission. You remain such a conduit for hope and love.