Amir, I know how hard your father was on you when you were growing up. I saw how you suffered and yearned for his affections and my heart bled for you. But your father was a man torn between two halves.

So he took it out on you instead-, the socially legitimate half, the half that represented the riches he had inherited and the sin-with-impunity privileges that came with them.

When he saw you, he saw himself. And his guilt.

You are still angry and I realize it is far too early to expect you to accept this, but maybe someday you will see that when your father was hard on you, he was also being hard on himself. Your father, like you, was a tortured soul.

And this is what I want you to understand, that good, real good, was born out of your father’s remorse.

I know that in the end. God will forgive. He will forgive your father and you too. I hope you can do the same. Forgive your father if you can. But most importantly forgive yourself. 

-taken from the novel, The Kite Runner