Ashlyn Horry, daughter of Robert Horry, died early Tuesday morning at a Houston hospital at the age of 17.

"My little girl was the light of my life and my family's," Horry said in a brief phone interview. "It's been tough, but we were blessed to have her for the time we did."

She had severe respiratory issues and other complications. The Times wrote a story about Ashlyn in which her condition was called "a neurological syndrome that mimics cerebral palsy."

Her disorder became known as the 1p36 deletion syndrome. It is caused when a child is born missing a part of chromosome No. 1