Well I’ve been there,sitting in that same chair,whispering that same prayer half a million tim

Well I’ve been there,
sitting in that same chair,
whispering that same prayer half a million times,

It’s a lie though,
burying disciples,
one page of the bible isn’t worth a life. 

It took me a while to process what I wanted to say about the death of Anne Rice, and what she meant to me. There’s a long story, as there is for so many, but in the whole, Anne’s struggle with religion and meaning spoke to me in a very real way through Armand. So many times, even in her autobiography, she spoke of emerging from the darkness, and on the page, through Armand, she told a story of devotion, obsession, and eventually, martyrdom. What I believe though, is that this supposed darkness is the only place some of us can see any light at all.

I was raised Catholic. “Normal” Catholic. Go to mass but don’t read the Bible Catholic. More statues of Mary than pictures of Jesus, catechism classes, trussed up like a child bride for Christ. All that. I grew into an independent and liberal, ally and feminist teenager, but somehow, eventually, I was scared into what I can only call fundamentalist Catholicism. Cover my hair for church, confession twice a week, giving up everything in life that made me happy, because happiness outside of Christ was a sin.

Over the course of about 6 years, I evolved past this, from Catholic to trinitarian Wicca to Greek Pagan to, eventually, atheist. But trauma, obsession and issues with mental health have only become more pronounced as I got older, and around summer 2019 I realized I had some severe religious trauma to sort through. Then comes fall, and something snaps in my brain. To this day I don’t know what sparked it or triggered it but I suddenly became intensely convinced of the idea that Holy Mother Church was not only true, but Truth with a capital T, and I was, once again, going to hell. Because there is no liberal Christianity in my world. There is no love and light, no universalism, no salvation. In my teachings and the cult beliefs I know, almost nobody goes to heaven. Short sleeves, cut hair, homosexual thoughts, appearing to others that you are sinning- souls “fall into hell like snowflakes” so says our lady of Fatima, and there is absolutely no salvation outside the church.

I saw suicide once again as my only option, because if you are convinced beyond any doubt that you will go to hell, then what use is your life? 40 years on earth suffering and anticipating an inevitable eternity, what does it matter? I was beyond terrified. I am trans, I am queer, I had finally escaped an abusive home and family and was flourishing. Now here I was, looking at our new house with my wife and girlfriend, them so excited to begin moving in and planning renovations, and I was wondering how to tell them I was going to leave them forever. I was sick. I lost 20 pounds, I ended up in urgent care for heart palpitations and I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t sleep, I had constant nightmares when I did. I spent over 6 months in an unending state of terror from the time I woke up to the time I eventually passed out.

Early 2020, my wife, who I hid all this from, started listening to Anne Rice audiobooks, and getting obsessed. I listened to SOMETHING all the time, trying to distract myself somehow and I wanted to die. So, out of nothing else to do, I started to listen, and they were nice. They distracted me, they were dark, pleasant stories. But I wasn’t obsessed like I usually was with a media I would grow to love. So one day she comes home and throws me a copy of The Vampire Armand and tells me here, your daddy issues will love this. SO I started to read it. Only Venice. I didn’t know a lot of the set up, since I was going out of order and had only paid some attention to IWTV and TVL, but I devoured this story of Venice. It was the rescue fantasy I had played out in my head so many times as a child, isolated and hungry and made very well known the fact that I was unwanted. It was a gothic, morbid little Cinderella, and though I knew Armand’s story with Marius didn’t have a fairy tale ending, I didn’t care. I had that connection now, to continue to read, and devour one book after another. I fell in love with Marius, with Daniel, and with Quinn, but it was Armand who drug me back from that pit, Armand, through Anne’s words. Armand and his prayers and his willingness to die as a sinner, Armand with his rings as he reclaimed the beauty of the world.

Anne gave up her vampires for a time as she went back to the church, and while I can’t pretend to be an expert or say I’ve read hardly any of her interviews or articles on the subject, I can imagine her sorrow and pain to have to shelf something that once saved you. I put away, gave away, and turned away so many parts of myself to fit the good little Catholic mold, and that mold is a *lie*. It’s wicked, it’s foul, it does nothing but steal joy and light while claiming to cure us of all that ails us.

I do not believe Anne is with Stan and Michele. I know for so many fans that is a comfort, but it’s simply not a part of reality for me. Anne isn’t anywhere. She died, and she has left us words and pictures and love, but there is no soul, no afterlife, no eternity, and *that* is the true light I see in death. To some it’s so sad to think that we won’t see those we love again, and as someone who lost their mother this year, I know that mourning. But it also means our loved ones aren’t burning and being tortured for eternity for not being Catholic or not being Catholic *enough*. All I can hope is that Anne, no matter what she thought at the very end, faced her last moments in peace and conviction and was without the fear that our past religion says we should all carry in our hearts. I hope she only thought of her own beautiful darkness.