Our dear friend, Maxine, has had her share of woes. On the other hand, she has had sweet blessings. She is thinly built with delicate features, warm smiles and trademark Southern woman kindness and courtesy.

Maxine is stepping quietly, unnoticed by the angels as much as possible, through this world.

Several years ago, I wrote about a terrible car wreck that Miss Maxine had endured. She had recently retired from the bank where my Daddy was one of her two favorite customers. Later, I’ll explain that.

Maxine was on her way home from taking supper to her gorgeous daughter, who, in her 20s, was stricken with a muscular disease that steadily progressed from a difficulty walking to a walker and now a wheelchair. Her charming son, Will, out of college, is utterly devoted to his mother and sees to every need she has, in addition to working a full job. An only child, his parents divorced when he was young so he has always seen after his mama and did it cheerfully. He doesn’t seem to mind not dating though he’s cute and thoughtful.

He just wants his mama to be loved and helped.

That day Maxine, in her early 80s, was coming back from delivering supper, driving very carefully. A teenager, cell phone in use, driving fast, crossed the line, hitting Maxine, head-on. As she was being loaded into ambulance just in time to come to and command, “Be sure to get my Bible and my gun.”

I laugh every time I think of that. But here’s something to know about Miss Maxine: her daughter was 6 months old when her daddy was killed in a car crash. For many years, it was just Miss Maxine struggling to make a bank salary stretch for the two of them in a time when women didn’t have a lot of career choices – secretary, teacher, nurse, bank teller.

Dozens of times, she has said to me, “If it weren’t for that wonderful daddy of yours, I don’t know what I’d have done. He kept my old car runnin’ so I could get to work. I’d take it down to his mechanic shop, he’d fix it, then never charge me a penny, Your daddy was about seein’ after us widow women.”

Something happened the other day that reminded me of that. We were having a hamburger at the unglamorous but delicious Pool Hall, when the major deputy came in. He joined our conversation, contributing an interesting story.

He had gotten a call that a man was acting crazy on the town square.

No gun, but he was a husky man with a strong swing.

“I just wanna pack of cigarettes,” he grumbled. The deputy calmed him down, put him in the patrol car and took him to McDonald’s.

“In the parking lot, I reached in my front pocket to get a 10 so he could buy cigarettes and get somethin’ to eat, he explained. “The wild man mistook the gesture, thinking the deputy was pulling his gun.

With his girth, he elbowed the good deputy in the cheekbone – he’ll surely show you the scar if you ask – and knocked the sizeable deputy out cold.

Here’s the best part: A young woman about 23 or 24 was getting out of her car when she witnessed the sordid mess. She didn’t hesitate. She swung the door back open, grabbed her gun and started shooting at the wild man. Her first shot, nerves and all, hit the dirt. Her second shot hit the running man in the gut. When he ran across a four-lane highway, she aimed high and grazed the side of his head. He fell to the median, just as reinforcements arrived. “Did you give her a medal?” I asked.

“We give her a big ol’ plaque, a ceremony and made her a hero.”

A Bible and a gun. Both save a life in a different ways.

Ronda Rich is the best-selling author of the Stella Bankwell series. Sign up her for her free weekly newsletter.