Who am I?

I was raised by someone who always knew to do the right thing. That is why I was taken in, because it was the right thing to do. Always right, to the point of being inflexible, and so I became a reed raised to bend and bow to the wishes of the wind.
I grew up quickly, as first I lost my parents, then my guardian...taken into a foreign culture to learn their ways. And unlike most aliens and strangers who stick out in a different society. I became one of them, I even gave up my own name, I hid my identity with the hard fought skill of being a chameleon. I sought anther's approval over all my actions, and used every thought and action to win the love of everyone around me. This became my greatest weapon, my ability to please others. While other young girls learned from their mothers. i learned from strangers. While most young girls were taught to cherish their family, I was told to deny mine. While other girls were given in marriage and raising their babies, building families and a legacy of little things. I was given one momentous night to loose even myself and then i had to wait.
I did please others. I did rise to the top of society at the cost of my cultural identity, and moral integrity. I became someone most mother's raise their children not to be. I used every ounce of persuasion I had to solidify my position.
And then, everything changed. I was asked, no commanded to stand for everything I left. Everything I was no longer. I was asked to fix what had-for me-already been broken. For all the other girls' baby-making, family tree forming, culture keeping, religious following, chaste living; the fate of their legacy of all the little moments rested in my two small hands. On my flexible tongue. In the political power I had exchanged all those things for. In strength of character no one watching from the outside would think I possessed.
Truthfully, I was given no choice. It was a command like no other. Can a swaying reed bend the wind to it's favor? Life had raised me as the pawn and now I was to act a queen, but it was all still a game with rules I could only follow. I had to unveil my carefully kept identity, to shed the last of my vulnerability, all for the sake of other's. Many other's, but still 'other', no longer sharing what we once did. Other's who could never even eat the same food as me. So, I asked to save my people but stayed a foreigner. I asked for an entire nation, I had already given away.
And while others rejoiced in the shelter of their family love. At the end of my own story, I held the hand of a stranger, high above normal life's noisy din, out of reach to mere mortals.

I am Queen Esther.