Tears for the Bookbinder's Son, an antique assemblage

It has been quite some time since I've created an assemblage. I have been focusing my energies on creating "functional" artwork and jewelry. I think this is actually the first though, that I have had a specific feeling behind the creating of it...I guess maybe more an emotion...or quite simply; grief.
This piece is about my father, as a way of expressing some of the emotions I've experienced since his death. Looking through old journal pages the other day, I came across pages from a time many years ago, in which I struggled with debilitating depression. I often had days in which I simply needed to list "what was good"...as if seeing it in writing made it somehow more real. It helped to keep more focused on what was important and what was, in fact good. Going over my list, I came upon an entry that stole my breath and made me choke on the sobs that wanted to escape from my throat. Just one line in my short list that day, of what was good:
"Hearing my father's laughter."
I have good days that string together one to another to another, when I think the worst of it is over....and then there are those days when my heart feels as if a heavy stone is tied tightly to it and the tears leak from behind my eyes no matter how I try to stay out of the shadows of grief and focus on the light.

p.s.(I took these shots without a tripod, by the way, thus creating the not so crisp pictures...I have since ordered a little tripod.)