Field Report 302.6

If you have been in this space you know I occasionally write more privately in my “Field Reports.” Today is one of those days.

I woke up to the news that Tatiana Schlossberg passed away last night. Although I hadn’t seen her in many years, the news brought back memories. She was thirty-five. Not much younger than my late husband, Anthony when he passed away. The rhythm of loss never makes sense to me—who stays, who goes, and when. Some people are spared and others are not, and there is no logic to it. That is the part I still can’t accept. It feels so damn arbitrary and cruel.

My memories of Tatiana are faint now but precise: a flower girl at my wedding; later, in her equestrian clothes at the horse farm—I recall she was a very good rider—then playing on the beach in Sagaponack with Anthony. Tatiana, and her siblings were always around. They delighted Anthony and unnerved him in equal measure. He teased them endlessly, but also watched them with enormous affection and fascination as though they were creatures from another planet.

Remembering the two of them together, it’s impossible not to feel how profoundly unfair it all is—how brief some lives are allowed to be, and how long the rest of us are left to remember them. My thoughts are with her family today.

Tatiana wrote her heartbreaking story in The New Yorker . And if you feel compelled to do something meaningful you may consider donating to the Kennedy Library in honor of Tatiana. [There is a section where you can write what has inspired the donation]. No one from her family has asked for donations but it feels like a sweet thing one can do and I’m sure it would be appreciated.