In Time Magazine’s March 18 issue, the famous author of The Vampire Chronicles and The Mayfair Witches said that she has one more book to write that will end Lestat’s reign in gothic literature. Meaning, after her spiritual transformation, she will never write about vampires again. Such sharp change in her writing arena is determined by one personal choice: after years of being an atheist, she has finally found a reason to believe. In fact, her latest and second religious book, Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana is already a bestseller.
Having been a follower of the successive instalments of The Vampire Chronicles, I have developed an identification on the day she decided to end it all because it led me to resurrect that time I lost my faith, the moment of my return and my self – confrontation on the strength of my belief. Thus, I remember…
…when my mother was diagnosed of breast cancer at stage three…when she has undergone mastectomy with renewed hopes…when my father’s visit to the hospital ended in a week’s coma and weeks more in bed…when his recovery was documented with an intermittent memory…when months afterwards, my mother was diagnosed with metastasis and her sufferings began…when my grandfather died in a culturally – ascribed atonement of my mother’s illness, and from which his life I have interpreted as the setting sun (The Rocking Chair, BMC Animated Me, July 2006)…and when my mother died six months after him…
Jut as vampires move with certainty that God does not exist, they stalk their prey at night in unlikely places. As I remember how an unexpectant victim falls, I also recall…
…those times when my dreams caused me illusion at the expense of my father’s love…when at the time of his sufferings I was barely around…when I decided to quit school to find silence…when my decision brought me doom just the same at the expense of my mother’s suffering…when at the time of my grandfather’s death I wasn’t there…the moments of self – hate insinuated by hate itself…and those times I already refused to believe God’s existence…
It all happened in five years where my choices were a major instigator of my darker stance in life. Henceforth, as vampires are married to solitary life, tiring immortality and eternal damnation, I began to see the people…
…who helped my mother in her surgery…who watched over my father in that time of uncertainty…who came to visit and pray for my mother’s recovery…who placed my insanity at bay…and who made me see the soul that is getting away…
Anne Rice said that most people stop believing because of losing somebody they love. And that has been my worst life yet because with the absence of a Greater Anchor, the source of my strength is something I did not already believe. My saving glory was the silence when…
…I remembered how my mother taught me to pray…how the three of us prayed as a family…after my mother’s death, I slowly began to get close to my father…I finished college and got myself a decent job afterwards…and amongst all, when I go home to the province, my father is there waiting for me.
There goes everything that continuously inspires me to write. As for Anne Rice’s final book, I’ll wait to read Lestat’s redemption to faith. I know that I’m partly saved while the rest I’ll do on my own. I am lucky that long before that book will be published, I have known her decision. At least she will stay as one of my favourite novelists and that I already have expressed the parallelism of her fiction, her decision and my reality.
Thank you, PublicDomainPictures, for the featured image.