Losing Thomas & Ella: A Father’s Story — Marcus B. Weaver-Hightower

Weaver-Hightower, M. B. (2017). Losing Thomas & Ella: A Father’s Story (A Research Comic). Journal of Medical Humanities, 38(3), 215–230. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-015-9359-z

Keywords

Perinatal death, Grief, Fathers, Stillbirth, Sequential art, Comics-based research, Narrative research, Qualitative research, Research comics

ABSTRACT: “Losing Thomas & Ella” presents a research comic about one father’s perinatal loss of twins. The comic recounts Paul’s experience of the hospital and the babies’ deaths, and it details the complex grieving process afterward, including themes of anger, distance, relationship stress, self-blame, religious challenges, and resignation. A methodological appendix explains the process of constructing the comic and provides a rationale for the use of comics-based research for illness, death, and grief among practitioners, policy makers, and the bereaved.