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That's how someone today on MSNBC described it. I think they are right. People started "staying away" as the coverage ramped up, but the ones who are making pilgrimages there now, may just be seeing it one last time, while it's not yet totally ruined.
Everyone who's had a loved one losing a long battle with illness knows the feeling.
First there's disbelief.."Grandma looks fine, it's probably nothing..she'll beat this"..People flock around to give her encouragement
Then as she fails, people may feel too disturbed to watch her fail, so their visits turn into phone calls & cards, but fewer visits, lest they be visually assaulted by how she's slipping away.
Finally, they can no longer stay away if they want that last fleeting moment with her, while she can still communicate with them, so they go, and make their peace with the loss of her.
I think this is what's happened to the tourists. People LOVE their vacations. They covet those photos. Every family has boxes full of old pictures of when they were little..splashing in the surf. The one constant in the parade of pictures, is the place. There may now be new buildings where dowdy little shacks were in the black & white curly-edged photos of our youth, but the sea is the same...or WAS the same. The yearly pilgrimage to "that place" is the stuff of family "heritage".
Seeing a place you loved, ruined, is very much like the loss of a family member. You try to remember the good times, but if you have witnessed the bad, it's there too, never to be forgotten.
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