Our beloved Tiana, sister, daughter, granddaughter and niece, passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on September 1st, 2026, due to an unforeseen cardiac failure. Her premature loss, at the time when she was so looking forward to the bright future that she was building while were cheering her on, leaves us forever broken hearted.

We welcomed Tiana into our family and hearts on December 23rd, 2003. She was the most wonderful Christmas gift, always gentle, cheerful, colourful, and sparkly, like the most beautiful ornament on our tree of life. We gratefully enjoyed her growing up, her humor and wit, her joy for life, her wonderful imagination, her sensibility, and her thoughtfulness and grace, that she shone daily on all of us throughout her carefree childhood days, ups and downs of her adolescent years, and the beginning of her adulthood. From early on, Tiana was a book lover and an inspiring storyteller. This love of books and history took her to the English literature undergraduate program at the University of Toronto, where she felt she found her true calling, and later on to the graduate studies in the early modern literature at the University of Oxford.

At the University of Toronto, she was an undergraduate research assistant for the John Galt project, starting with the 2023 Jackman Scholars-in-Residence program. In 2024 and 2025, she was an undergraduate fellow at the Jackman Humanities Institute at the University of Toronto, her fellowship project being The Forgotten Function of Female Printers in the Restoration Literary Underground. She developed her undergraduate fellowship project into a Master of Studies dissertation at the University of Oxford. She was eager to continue working on this project in the Doctor of Philosophy program at the University of Oxford, where she was the recipient of the Clarendon Fund and Merton College award.

Tiana was impatiently counting the days to her return to Oxford, where she was to attend her master’s convocation and continue with her doctorate, when her life was abruptly cut short. The world will miss the papers and books that she was dreaming to write, while we will miss our sweet girl, the brightness of her eyes, the playfulness of her smile, her kind voice and her gentle touch, grateful for all the years we enjoyed with her, and mourning all those that were yet to come.

Our beloved Tiana, you will stay in our hearts and souls forever, and we will love you and miss you till the end of our days.

Forever yours, mom (Marija), dad (Dušan), sisters Emilia and Ana, grandparents Vukica and Stevo Orlić, and Mariana Milačić (predeceased by Vladimir Milačić), uncles Miloš (Olivera) Orlić and Miloš (Vesna) Milačić, cousins Mitar and Milica Milačić, Tara and Tessa Orlić, and great-aunt Anka Mandić (predeceased by Dušan Mandić).