On a December afternoon, Beverly Carr made buckeye cookies with her daughter, Amber McCreary, in their Center Township home as Christmas music played in the background.

Carr gathered the ingredients, mixed the dough and worked the oven, while Amber watched from her wheelchair nearby. Carr calls it teamwork — the same kind of partnership she and her daughter have shared through nearly three decades together.

Amber was diagnosed just before her third birthday with lissencephaly, a rare neurological disorder that causes daily seizures and requires round-the-clock care. Doctors once told her mother she might not live past childhood.

Her medical journey — including the fact Amber is among the longest-living people in the country with her diagnosis — was told last year. After Amber marked her 30th birthday on Christmas Day, her mother reflected on what those years have meant.

The partnership began on a snowy Christmas night 30 years ago, when Carr was still almost a child herself.

Pregnant at 18, Carr went into labor during a blizzard so severe hospital staff struggled to get there and no anesthesiologist arrived in time to give her an epidural.

“After two days of labor, I finally had my little angel in my arms on Christmas night at 7:05,” Carr said.

In the weeks that followed, Carr noticed angels appearing everywhere — on greeting cards, blankets, baby dolls and other gifts.

“There were all these angels,” she said. “I look back and think that God was telling me that Amber was one of His special angels and that’s why He released her to me on Christmas Day. She was going to be one of the people on earth who teaches us a lesson.”

Carr would go on to have another daughter and three sons.

At the time, she had no idea her Christmas angel — diagnosed just before her third birthday — was facing a lifetime of illness that would shape both Amber’s life and her own.

“Amber shaped me into the person I am more so than my own parents did raising me,” Carr said. “She taught me about strength, love and the power of prayer.”

That belief has guided the way Carr lives her life.

She said she tries to make her daily decisions with an eye toward kindness, honesty and compassion — values she hopes will one day reunite her with her daughter in heaven.

“I want to be with my daughter,” she said. “I want to see her running through flowers and being whole.”

Over the years, Amber lost many of the abilities she once had, including speech and mobility. Today, she communicates mostly through sounds and gestures — and through her eyes.

“She will just stare at you and you feel the connection,” Carr said. “If she’s having a bad day, I hold her and sing ‘You Are My Sunshine,’ and I feel her calm down — because she feels our love and we feel hers.”

Carr said her role as a mother has always been about making sure all five of her children had the chance to thrive — to have friends, activities and a sense of normalcy. For many years, Amber went along in her wheelchair to sporting events and family outings. As her condition progressed, crowds — and the risk of illness — made leaving the house more difficult.

Along the way, Carr said, there was grief and many tears — especially during Amber’s teenage years — for the milestones her daughter would never reach.

“I definitely grieved,” she said. “Prom. Marriage. Children. College.”

What carried her through, she said, was faith — and a belief she repeats to herself often: God is in control.

These days, Carr goes to work each morning as a manager at a local business, while Amber is bussed to Austin’s Place in Saxonburg, a day program for adults with severe disabilities. They reunite each evening for dinner and a routine that ends early — Amber is usually in bed by 6 p.m. It is a quiet life, structured and predictable, shaped around what keeps Amber comfortable and calm.

But Amber’s health can change without warning. Carr said she tries not to dwell on that reality, but it is never far from her mind.

“Is Amber going to be here next year?” she said. “Are my grandkids going to know her?”

In recent months, Amber’s health declined, sending her in and out of the hospital. Two weeks before Christmas, she experienced a day marked by hundreds of seizures. Doctors suggested nursing home care, but Carr said that is not an option.

“Taking care of Amber is what I was made to do,” she said.

Last year, Carr spoke about plans for an all-out celebration to mark Amber’s 30th birthday on Christmas Day.

This year, the party was canceled to protect her health. The birthday was going to pass quietly — spent at home with the people who have always made-up Amber’s world: her mother, her brothers and sister and her three nephews.

“We were upset about the party a little bit,” Carr said. “But Christmas is about being together. It’s a feeling — one that stays with us from November through January — comfort, home, traditions, just being together.”

For the Carr family, that feeling has a name.

“Amber is our Christmas.”