DECATUR - Jo Colver, 67, first noticed subtle changes in her mother. Over time, the evidence that Irene Morris' mind was failing became impossible to ignore.

Colver remembered her mom calling her repeatedly one evening to say she was late for a beauty shop appointment that wasn't set to take place until the next morning. One night she called, frantic that she couldn't work the lock on her back door.

"I said, 'You're going to have to come home with me, Mom, and stay here for a while,' " Colver said. "So I came back, and I got a few things ready, and I went over to pick her up, and I sat in the garage and cried because I knew she'd never leave once she came. I knew what was going on at that point."

It was Alzheimer's disease that slowly and painfully robbed Colver of her mother.

"For me to see the brain, the loneliness, in the shell that she was in, it was unbelievable," she said.

The woman who loved to garden and buy noodles at the craft fair to give away as presents soon could not remember the date.

"One time, she asked me 68 times in 34 minutes," Colver said. "I kept a tally. What day is it? What day is it?"

By the time she died in 2004 at age 89, the mother Colver had known her whole life was gone.

"I missed talking to her about things," she said. "She couldn't remember anything, and this was very frustrating to me. All of our old memories were gone."

Colver, a former physical education teacher, continued to grieve the loss of her mother. But it wasn't until her former student, Cass Friedman, 54, started a tradition that her healing began.

"I said, 'You know Cass ¦ nobody seems to ask about Mom anymore. Nobody seems to care about her,' " Colver said.

So Friedman came up with a plan. The Chicago-area psychotherapist started by walking in the 2004 Chicago Memory Walk, one of the large-scale events put on across the country by chapters of the Alzheimer's Association to raise money and awareness. Friedman has collected more than $45,000 for the cause since starting in 2004. Her greatest honor came when she was asked to give the kickoff speech for last year's Chicago walk.

And in June 2005, one year to the day that Morris died, Friedman started her own personal tradition of coming to Decatur to walk in honor of her. Now, in her fourth year of walking, Friedman returned to Decatur last Friday to stroll through Fairview Park with Colver.

"I didn't even go the first year to see her," Colver said. "I was like grieving for my mother, and I thought, 'Oh I can't. I can't go.' "

Last year was Colver's first time joining in on the walk. Each year, the women create a T-shirt to commemorate the event. One year's shirt bore a picture of Morris working in her garden. This year, the women wore matching outfits from their powder blue shirts right down to their necklaces with an ancient Chinese women's script character for "old sames," kindred spirits.

This year's Decatur walk was cut short by an impromptu vacation to Michigan, in the adventuresome spirit of what Friedman calls "the new Jo." Colver's husband, Art, was on his yearly monthlong fishing trip in New York, so the women hopped into Friedman's rented red Mustang convertible and headed north for some reflection and relaxation.

Alzheimer's disease has touched Friedman's life, too. She was just 9 years old when her father's mother started being affected by the disease. Friedman remembered her grandmother staying in bed for long periods and that she did not know her name. Years later, her aunt and uncle would not know her either.

"I'd say, 'Uncle Mike, it's me, it's me,' " Friedman said. "And he would just stare into space."

Friedman's walk T-shirt also has a photograph of Harold and Marilyn Silver, the parents of a dear friend. She has watched the family agonize over Marilyn Silver's battle with Alzheimer's disease.

But it is more than the shared tragedy of the illness that has forged the steadfast bond between the women. Back in her freshman year of high school in Skokie in 1968, Friedman said Colver came along just in time to save her.

"I really was lost," Friedman said. "In fact, I've said this to Jo, but not in so many words. There was a point in my life, my freshman year of high school, where I had made a choice that maybe I didn't want to live, anymore."

Colver's devoted attention changed Friedman's outlook on life.

"The nurturing that I received from Jo was just water to a real dry plant," she said.

Colver took her free periods to help Friedman make plans for college and life and drove her home from badminton tournaments long after the other students' rides had gone.

"She taught me to believe in myself," Friedman said. "She allowed me the gift of being a happy person. She believed in me, and by her believing in me, I learned to believe in myself."

Friedman vowed in high school to pay her teacher back for the difference she had made in her life. She started out years ago by going back to teach at her old high school, and now she walks for and with her teacher, her friend.

Annie Getsinger can be reached at agetsinger@herald-review.com 421-6968.