Yesterday, it was standing room only at the Southwick-Good & Fortkamp Funeral Chapel in Clintonville. The lines queuing up outside for nearly an hour had snaked into every possible entrance. Many wore purple, signifying the deceased’s enthusiasm for her alma mater, Mount Union College. And nearly everyone took a moment to dab their eyes for a woman who they said at some time or place in their lives had made them feel welcome. She did that for me.

I first got to know Randi Hirschauer during a brief stint working at the Ohio Division of Securities. She was standing in the tiny employee kitchen, surrounded by dozens of suspicious containers she’d just pulled from the employee refrigerator. Like many offices, ours was less than vigilant about cleaning out the communal fridge. Until the foul aromas wafted up, the offending items simply got shoved to the back.

Randi was having none of it. She’d posted a sign with a date certain for disposal, and it was on the day following this date that I met her – fearlessly dumping the unsavory contents into a garbage bag. Like Tom Sawyer, she made it seem fun, and before I knew it, we were engaged in a lively collaboration that involved my wiping down the refrigerator shelves.

Yesterday, as family and friends rose, one by one, to salute her, one common theme emerged. This was a fun-loving woman who concerned herself with the comfort of others before herself and who reached out to make others feel welcome. Neighbors credited Randi with fostering the community on their street. I saw her do it at work. At a time when electronic communication seems to trump real human contact, we can learn a lot from her.

A favorite piece of advice I once received after leaving a hyper-hectic job was “Float like a leaf down a river.”

The metaphor was perfect. There are times when the best we can do is relax into the flow, like a leaf down a river, and just allow ourselves to be carried.

I was reminded of the advice during a Sunday afternoon canoe trip down the Hocking River, where the afternoon sun and falling leaves conspired to make a magical afternoon. Like the paddlers who passed them by, some of the leaves were willing to be carried limply by the water. Others scooted energetically like crumpled brown sailboats, fueled by a fresh breeze.

There’s no right or wrong way to move down a river. Monday comes soon enough either way. But my salute goes to the floaters. They took the afternoon off and breathed deep.

Time travel is exhausting. So I learned this weekend, revisiting high school classmates at our (gulp!) 45th reunion.

Aided by Google and Facebook, the organizers managed to track down and entice more than 60 of the first graduating class of Firestone High School in Akron, Ohio, to return for the latest of our now-and-again gatherings.

With yearbook photos and the women’s maiden names on the nametags, we squinted, then feigned instant recognition of brunettes who had long ago gone gray or blond. And over two days, we traded stories.

Some, healthy and accompanied by their original mates and sheafs of grandchild pictures, seemed to have led fairytale lives. Others recounted couplings and un-couplings worthy of a soap opera, chronic illnesses, and deaths even of children. Wisdom seemed to flow from these stories in direct proportion to the losses that drove them.

High school can be a painful time, and many resist revisiting it when the reunion notice arrives. But reconnecting with real people and their stories can be a broadening and perspective-altering experience. Never mind that you weren’t a cheerleader or the captain of the football team. It really doesn’t matter anymore.

When the same message comes at me from several directions, I figure it’s time to pay attention.

The bombardment started with a sticker we were required to wear at a coaches’ training class. It wore a single four-letter word: FAIL. Not only were we told it was OK to fail. We were encouraged to fail and learn from it. Never failing meant never getting outside our comfort zones, never taking a chance on intuition. For each failure, we were rewarded with a chicken scratch on the sticker. I got a few.

Round 2 came in a sermon, in which the pastor suggested erasers might be a good symbol to keep around. Without failure, he said, there was no learning. The eraser meant we could keep going and trying, learning from our mistakes.

The final round came via my current book of choice: Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman, PhD. In it, the author acknowledges that failure causes all of us to become “momentarily helpless,” but that in optimists the helplessness does not persist. Another good reason to view failure as an opportunity to learn.

If wisdom comes in 3’s, the message is clear. If the dog eats your planner and it feels like a failure, one question to ask is “Yeah, but what did I learn from it?”

What have you failed at recently? What did you learn from it?