No child is ever, ever responsible for the empty place inside a grown-up.

Your father did not do this because of anything you are or anything you aren’t.

There is a hole in him, Tommy, and it is his hole, and no child could ever have filled it, and it is not your job to try.

You do not have to earn the right to be loved.

You were never defective.

You were never too little or too weak or not enough.

You are exactly, completely enough, and you always have been, and the people who couldn’t see that were the ones who were broken.