The Jacaranda bloom-bust parallels life

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Dear Editor,
My Dad is in the twilight of his life now. The once ramrod-tall school teacher is now the stooped and ailing 85-year-old biding his time to meet his beloved, my mother, who died ten years ago.  At school, Dad was a no-nonsense disciplinarian. Naughtiness incited mild beltings for the boys. My misbehaving sisters were sternly reprimanded in deference to their girlhood gentleness. 
The harshness of life was not hidden from us. As we chose to look on, chooks designated for the dinner table had their necks swiftly and expertly sliced before our distressed eyes could blink to the act, with spurts of life blood drained to furnish blood pudding. 
The older girls were favoured for the family’s first overseas adventures to a Thai beach resort. The spoilt brat boy in me whined for days, long after the shiny bird had whirred into a dot on the horizon. Dad made up for this searing omission by taking the boys in the magic bird past vast swathes of emerald-green equatorial forest of Borneo across the South China Sea towards bustling Singapore. 
On the plane, Dad had become the guiding ‘North Star of Fairness’ that restored the gleam in my dispossessed eyes. I was recently reminded of this by the bright meteor tail of the star that threatens to break off from his major heart valve. However, this star-streaking “vegetation” is...