It's a beautiful Sunday afternoon here on Fire Island. I'm relaxing but about to start writing an article for this month's paper. It is on a subject that is a sober reminder that the Cherry Grove and Fire Island Pines today were not always so carefree and joyful.

I was born in Aug. 1981, and that makes me a member of the so-called AIDS generation. I have never lived in an era without AIDS. I have never lost a partner, a relative or a parent to AIDS. I have never had to attend the funerals of dozens (or more) friends, lovers and acquaintances who succumbed to AIDS. As I write this blog by the pool on this beautiful Sunday afternoon, however, there are people on this beach and elsewhere who continue to live with and battle the virus. There are people on this beach and elsewhere who continue to mourn those who are no longer with us. More ominously, there are people on this beach and elsewhere who continue to act as though AIDS never happened.

As a journalist who reports on the Grove and the Pines, I have become acutely aware of the epidemic's devastating toll. The virus claimed an untold number of Fire Islanders whose names I may never know. We have a collective obligation, however, to remember them on this sad milestone. We have the same collective responsibility to acknowledge those on this beach and elsewhere who continue to mourn their loss and live with the disease.