Ever since baby sister Shari gave birth to her and Kevin’s firstborn, Katelyn Ruth, I’ve nicknamed her Baby Kate.

With a 22-hour round trip drive between us, we don’t see her often, and at 17 months I’ve discovered that she warms up to most men, a few women, but not me.

“Do you want to come to Auntie Nae?” I ask. And although her vocabulary is growing, but still limited, she is able to fully articulate her one-word answer: “No!”

The other night I tried subtlety. I crawled across the sand, hoping for a gentle meeting on her level. What I got after she caught a glimpse of me was a nasty chain reaction. Her hands flew in the air, her feet went running, and she screamed, “Mommmmmmmy!”

In between Baby Kate’s screams and my siblings’ laughter, the movie “Steel Magnolias” was brought up. I totally missed the transition from her shrieks to this 1989 comedy-drama film. “Steel Magnolias?” I asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it.”

“You sure did,” said sister Lori. “You saw it with me, don’t you remember?” She then detailed how we laughed and sobbed through the whole movie and then sat in the parking lot of Burger King and did a repeat performance of the laughing and sobbing.

I was clueless. “Do you remember what we talked about?” I asked. She didn’t. “Oh, good,” I said. “I’d hate to totally miss this precious sister moment if there was a profound conversation to boot.”

“We should watch it again!” someone suggested. And in a late evening, knee-jerk reaction to getting together one final time before one sister headed back to California, and another would soon return to Michigan, my three sisters, sister-in-law and couple of nieces gathered at my house for the special feature — “Steel Magnolias.”

The comedy-drama is about the bond between a group of Southern women in northwest Louisiana, with most of the action centering around Truvy’s beauty parlor where the women regularly gather.

We laughed at the unlikely friendship between Clairee and Ouiser (pronounced “Weezer”), delighted in the way Truvy took talented, but strange Annelle under her wing as her beauty shop assistant, and passed a roll of toilet paper around (I was out of tissues) when 25-year-old and new mom Shelby died of Type 1 diabetes complications, with her mother at her side.

Near the movie’s end, Ouiser, sharp-tongued, but loveable, crawled on her hands and knees to greet the late Shelby’s young son, Jackson. This sent him running and shrieking for his grandmother and brought us full circle to how we transitioned from Baby Kate’s screams to “Steel Magnolias.”

How we got to that one-o’clock-in-the-morning hour gathered around a roll of toilet paper, popcorn and “Steel Magnolias” isn’t nearly as important as what the title and crux of the movie was all about. “The film’s title suggests the female characters are ‘as delicate as magnolias but as tough as steel’ and this represents what a ‘Steel Magnolia’ is.” (Scanlon, 2007).

You probably know a female or two who is apt to fill that “Steel Magnolia” description. There’s a group of widow ladies from my neck of the prairie who have dubbed themselves as the “Fabulous Four.”

Their wit and chitchat (sometimes sharp, often simply side-splitting humor) delights me and their big hearts of love and service are inspiring. They truly are delicate as magnolias — devoted to their families, each other, their church and their community — yet tough as steel in the strength it took to continue on after their beloved husbands passed away.

Rachel Barkey is a 37-year-old wife and mother of two who is dying of cancer. She’s a steel magnolia as she addresses 600 women with her moving and beautiful testimony. Whether you watch it alone or with your girlfriends, you’ll be blessed. Log on to http://deathisnotdying.com/eventvideo.

Marilyn Hontz, author of “Shame Lifter: Replacing Your Fears and Tears with Forgiveness, Truth and Hope,” is a steel magnolia as she shares her personal story of shame, unworthiness and abuse, and gives other women hope and guidance in how to release that hurt to God, their shame lifter.

No offense to the wonderful men in our lives, but one of life’s greatest gifts is to know and be surrounded by steel magnolias — women delicate in love and encouragement and tough as steel when life’s storms hit. Friends may come, and friends may go, but steel magnolia women are to be treasured for a lifetime.