Choosing the Parents I Got

I was given
The parents I got
Through a lottery
I didn’t choose.
All I saw were
Their failures
And shortcomings.
My judgement
That they shouldn’t
Have been
The way they were
Left me in battle
With reality,
And the futility
Of that war
Never occurred to me.
I fought them
Tooth and nail,
More by subterfuge
Than by open warfare.
We had occasional battles
Of epic proportions,
But it was mostly
Minor skirmishes
In a protracted war
Of endurance,
A contest of wills
With no victor possible.
Resisting the fact
That they were my parents
Didn’t make them
Any less my parents.
Like it or not,
They were my parents
And I wasn’t going to
Change that fact.
I needed to choose them
Just as they were,
For better or worse,
But it took me
Almost a lifetime
To make that choice.