Survivor contestant Sunday Burquest has died. She was 50.
The pastor, who appeared on Survivor: Millennials vs. Generation X in 2016, was diagnosed with esophageal and ovarian cancer last year. She took to social media last June to declare she intended to beat the disease, just as she had survived breast cancer just eight years prior. A devout Christian, Sunday wrote a book about her health journey, titled Grit Girl: Power to Survive Inspired by Grace.
Showing off a shirt that read, “I survived esophageal and ovarian cancer,” Sunday explained in an Instagram video at the time, “It’s not a super great thing, of course, and not fun to hear, but I will say that I do know that I have already survived cancer once and I will survive it again, which is why I’m wearing this shirt and saying right now I survived it.”
Sunday, whose doctors only gave her a few months to live, told People at the time, “No one knows how much time you have left. Accidents can happen. Miracles can happen. Someone healthy can die unexpectedly, and someone sick can live for much longer than expected. So I don’t think of this as a death sentence; I think of this as something that has happened, and is now a part of my life. And I’m going to live my life as fully as I can.”
In an April 18 Instagram post, Sunday’s lookalike daughter Kennedy Burquest shared several photos of herself and her mom, along with a lengthy caption about her passing.
“To my unbelievably beautiful mama,” she began. “Thank you. Thank you for fighting as hard as you did for as long as you did. Thank you for being a best friend, a role model, a sister, and my mother all in one. Thank you for raising me to love Jesus, and show that love to others. That’s something you did so well.”