by Bruce Shenitz

About the author: Bruce Shenitz is a New York City–based writer and editor who writes about social and cultural topics.

Sometimes no news really is good news. On August 13, 1998, the banner headline of San Francisco’s Bay Area Reporter screamed in bright red ink, NO OBITS, when the paper received no AIDS-related death notices for an entire week—the first such nonoccurrence in 17 years. Michael Bettinger, a San Francisco psychotherapist with a large gay practice, remembers that “a surprising number of clients brought in the paper to talk about it.” After 15 years, during which death had become commonplace and expected, he says, the no-obits issue was “noted as a marker.”

After more than a decade of perpetual loss and mourning, the atmosphere in...