We are saddened to share that Fatima Ali, a former Top Chef contestant, has died of cancer at age 29. A version of this essay is slated to run in our March print magazine. We are running it early online to share her perspective and honor her memory. Three months ago, Ali wrote for us about how she was spending her remaining months, following her terminal diagnosis. This version expands on her earlier piece.

I grew up in Pakistan, where food is a really integral part of the culture. I started cooking with my grandmother when I was six or seven, and she would teach me how to make little bread bears. They had peppercorn eyes and cloves for buttons, and I remember thinking it was such an amazing thing, that I could actually make something with my own hands.

After I graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in 2011, my mom wanted me to come home, but I said “Just give me one year in New York City. There's no place better for me to learn.” Every time I’d go back to visit my family in Pakistan, I would cook. Watching me evolve gave my mom comfort, and helped her understand that this was absolutely my calling. So she finally let go, and said, “Look, just promise me that you'll do your absolute best. And I’ll be happy with that.” And I said, “Okay. That’s a promise.”

My first job was at an Indian-Latin restaurant in New York. I was a floor manager and the sous chef at the same time, weirdly enough. So I spent three days in the front, and four days in the back. I was doing seven-day weeks, 14-hour days. I did that for nine months. Later, at another job, my executive chef quit suddenly, as they often do. I was just a 21-year-old junior sous chef, but suddenly in charge of the whole place. I worked breakfast, lunch, dinner, catered all these super-VIP holiday parties. I’d get home at 1 a.m then have to wake up at 4 a.m. for a private breakfast party. One time several cooks called out and then the person who was transporting the catering trays dropped them all onto the pedestrian walk at 45th St. and Lexington Ave. In the middle of lunch rush. We had to remake everything, with all the cooks missing. There were plenty of days like that. But you know what? It was amazing. Managing to get through a day like that—and not only living to tell about it, but doing it again and again—I think it really makes you understand what a human is capable of. We’re so resilient. If I had to do it all again, I wouldn’t change anything.

When I got diagnosed with a rare form of cancer called Ewings Sarcoma, I had just finished filming Top Chef in Colorado. It was 2017 and I was working at the U.S. Open with my friend Joe Flamm, who was the winner and had opened up a pop-up restaurant there. I’d had this weird ache in my shoulder for the past couple of months that I’d been ignoring. You know, popping a couple of Advils, going to sleep. But one day, in the middle of lunch, my shoulder swelled up and the pain was mounting literally by the minute. I had to go to the emergency room.

They gave me an MRI literally within 20 minutes of seeing me, because I was in so much pain. I remember the doctor was exceptionally handsome. I remember standing over there crying my eyes out and this guy could be on a runway. He calls me on my cell phone and I’m thinking, “Ooh, this hot doctor's asking me out.” But instead he says, “I want to refer you to an oncologist.” That was just the beginning. They didn't discharge me from my first hospital admission for three weeks.