Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ex-wife, journalist Maria Shriver, has shared an emotional tribute honoring Tatiana Schlossberg after her death at age 35.
Schlossberg — the daughter of Shriver’s cousin Caroline Kennedy — died Tuesday, weeks after she announced her terminal cancer diagnosis.
“I return to this space today to pay tribute to my sweet, beloved Tatiana, who left this earth today,” Shriver, 70, wrote on Instagram, sharing several pictures of her late cousin. “I return to this space to pay tribute and honor her loving and supportive family, who came together and did everything they possibly could do to help her. I return to this space heartbroken because Tatiana loved life. She loved her life, and she fought like hell to try to save it.”
“I cannot make sense of this. I cannot make any sense of it at all. None. Zero,” Shriver wrote. She went on to say that Schlossberg, who was a respected environmental journalist, “used her words to educate others about the earth and how to save it.”
Shriver — who is also a journalist and was famously married to Terminator star Schwarzenegger, with whom she shares four children — went on to praise Schlossberg’s mother, saying: “My heart has always been with my cousin Caroline ever since we were little kids. My entire being is with her now. What a rock she has been. What a source of love she has been with Ed, Rose, Rory, Jack, George, Eddie, Josie, and all of Tatiana’s cousins and friends and the amazing doctors who tried so hard.”
She concluded her tribute by remembering Schlossberg as “the light, the humor, the joy. She was smart, wicked smart, as they say, and sassy. She was fun, funny loving, caring, a perfect daughter, sister, mother, cousin, niece, friend, all of it.”
“Those of us left behind will make sure Eddie and Josie know what a beautiful, courageous spirit their mother was and will always be. She takes after her extraordinary mother, Caroline.”
Schlossberg died a year and a half after she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a rare cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow. The mother of two, who was married to George Moran, opened up about her cancer in a poignant essay published by The New Yorker in November. In Shriver’s post Tuesday, she asked her followers to read Schlossberg’s “extraordinary” piece.
“May we all hold Tatiana’s family in our collective embrace not just today, but in the days ahead, and may each of you who read this know how lucky you are to be alive right now. Please pause and honor your life. It truly is such a gift,” Shriver wrote.
