The Lame Shall Enter First

Flannery O' Connor stories "The Lame Shall Enter First" and "Everything That Rises Must Converge" has a lot of resemblances of grief and troubled family relationship.
The similarities of both story suggests that author herself seems unhappy and had experience some hard times in her own life, like her incurable disease that eventually lead to her death. The personal family trouble and the lack of attention from Sheppard to his son, also is similar in the relationship between Julian and his own mother acceptance in the “Everything Must Converge” story. Both stories show that trouble relationship between a parent and a child may have consequences later in life. The lack of parental attention from Sheppard with his son and the loss of his mother contributed to Norton unhappiness and difficult grieving of his mother death. Selfishness took over Sheppard not realizing that he could not save the world helping others and he could be more thoughtful of his own son. The regrets that consume his thoughts after his son’s death, contributed for his realization that now is too late and like most people in life, only appreciate something when you can’t have anymore and unfortunally it can’t go back in time, being too late to recognize the mistakes made.