Former Miss Crystal Lake writes of son’s mysterious illness, death in new book

For five years, a 1978 graduate of Crystal Lake Community High School and former Miss Crystal Lake searched in vain to find a diagnosis – and a cure – for her teenaged son who was experiencing excruciating headaches and seizures.

Beth Thorp shared her story of faith and the painful journey of losing her son to a mysterious illness in a new book, titled “ANEW Creation: Finding Meaning in the Midst of Tragedy,” which was released last month.

Writing the book was how Thorp not only worked through the heartache of losing her older son to an undiagnosed, debilitating disease, but also how she survived the days the world shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, she said.

The book and the Mitchell Thorp Foundation, which she founded in 2009 with her husband, Brad Thorp, who also is a former Crystal Lake resident, are in memory of their son, Mitchell Thorp, who died Nov. 19, 2008, after suffering “five very hard years.”

Mitchell Thorp was born Sept. 12, 1990, a healthy 8 pounds, 7 ounces and was a typical healthy boy, “always very athletic,” said Beth Thorp, who today lives with her husband in Carlsbad, California.

All that changed, however, when he turned 13 and began suffering a string of unexplained symptoms, including excruciating headaches and myoclonic seizures.

His younger brother, Matthew Thorp, now 32, was 10 years old when he remembers his brother suddenly becoming very ill. He did not understand why he was so sick and recalled relatives taking care of him while his parents were away seeking answers. He tried to focus on school and playing baseball, he said, but “it was not easy.”

The Thorps took their son to doctors across the U.S., looking into western medicine as well as integrative medicine treatments, “always searching for answers,” Beth Thorp said.

Still, every blood test, MRI and electrocardiogram came back negative or normal. The only questionable test was one showing he had abnormal levels of metals in his system, discovered by an osteopath. The osteopath also said the pain in his head was caused by inflammation but could not say what was causing the inflammation.

“We were searching the [planet] to find doctors, to find a diagnosis, to get a cure – to no avail,” she said. “We couldn’t figure out what happened.”

She described her son as “loving, sunshine” and a child who “radiated so much joy.” He excelled in school and in sports. Like his dad, who played professional baseball for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Mitchell was a sought-after baseball player.

But for the last two years of his life, he was receiving hospice care at home, where the Thorps assembled a team of caretakers. Near the end, he no longer could speak or walk and could barely see.

He died Nov. 19, 2008, at Baylor Hospital in Texas at the age of 18.

“Ultimately, we know [Mitchell] received his ultimate healing,” Beth Thorp said. “When God took him, we knew he is out of his pain. Now the pain is with us.”

Thorp said she and her husband took all of that “pain and grief” and put it into creating the foundation in 2009 to serve families in the San Diego area. In 2020, she put that all into writing her book.

“When I was in my deepest pain of grief, I didn’t want to face the world anymore,” Beth Thorp said. “God spoke to me in my spirit. He said, ‘This is not the end. This is just the beginning.’ ”

It was only a few days later that Brad Thorp heard of a family whose child had lymphoma, and they were struggling to make ends meet.

Brad Thorp said he told his wife, “We need to form something to help families deal with what we have gone through.”

Beth Thorp, who after being named Miss Crystal Lake in 1980 was a runner-up for Miss McHenry County and competed in the Miss Illinois pageant, was told many times that she needed to write a book about her family’s experience. So, she said, when the pandemic “shut everything down,” she settled into solitude and wrote her story.

She said she often felt God, and her son spoke to her, guiding the story. A week after submitting her manuscript to a publisher in New York, the same week her son died, her book was accepted.

Brad Thorp said that working through the story was painful but provided healing.

Beth Thorp wrote about painful and tender moments shared with her son and times after his death when she felt he was giving signs that he was present and he was healed.

The Thorps hope the book helps others to feel love and hope, as well as the strength to persevere during hard times.

“God never wastes a tragedy,” Beth Thorp said.