{"id":180034,"date":"2014-09-24T04:00:53","date_gmt":"2014-09-23T18:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=180034"},"modified":"2014-09-24T04:00:53","modified_gmt":"2014-09-23T18:00:53","slug":"saipan-community-remembers-13-fishermen-lost-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/saipan-community-remembers-13-fishermen-lost-sea\/","title":{"rendered":"Saipan community remembers 13 fishermen lost at sea"},"content":{"rendered":"

Patrick Romolor was 19 when he lost his father, Isidro Romolor, almost 30 years ago.<\/p>\n

He spoke with Saipan Tribune yesterday at the 13 Fishermen Memorial Monument, where family, friends, and other members of the community joined the 28th death anniversary of the 13 fishermen who disappeared at sea on Sept. 23, 1986.<\/p>\n

\"Devin
Devin Aldan stands beside the plaque of his grandfather, Isidro Romolor, at the 13 Fishermen Monument Memorial on Beach Road yesterday during the 28th death anniversary of the 13 fishermen lost at sea in the Northern Islands. (DENNIS B. CHAN)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cFor many of us, coming here, celebrating Mass here, it keeps them in touch, keeps us close with lost loved ones,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Faiyeghamem, the title song of an album Romolor wrote with his brothers, was dedicated to the fishermen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wrote about the time they left Agrigan, looking for shelter and ended up going straight into the eye of the storm,\u201d he said of the song\u2019s lyrics.<\/p>\n

He said he was trying to write a song when a tune came into his mind with one topic: the fishermen, of whom two were also his uncles and the rest were his cousins.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re out there in the middle of the storm, everything is dark, you can\u2019t see, visibility is zero. You don\u2019t know what\u2019s left or right, and you\u2019re alone. And you know you\u2019re going to die,\u201d he said of what came to his mind when writing the song.<\/p>\n

Romolor said he found it difficult to write it in any other dialect other than Carolinian, adding that even the title is hard to explain.<\/p>\n

Faiyeghamem means \u201chave mercy on us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are asking for mercy to be saved, because they are out there, capsized, they don\u2019t know anywhere else to go. But they ask the Lord to \u2018forgive us\u2019 and \u2018have mercy on us\u2019\u2026that\u2019s the closest I can go,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He believes the fishermen thought of their children and family with their last breath as they knew they would no longer be able to see them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe refrain says, \u2018how it hurts, when you\u2019re going to die, because you won\u2019t be able to see your kids and family anymore,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Romolor grew up on Agrigan with his family, attending Agrigan Elementary School before moving to Saipan in seventh grade, for junior high and then later high school and college.<\/p>\n

According to Romolor, he grew up with the fishermen, attending Agrigan Elementary School before moving to Saipan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went fishing with them, hunting with them, talk stories with them, [because] back there is only one village,\u201d he said on his childhood.<\/p>\n

He noted how Agrigan is a large part of his family and himself wherever they go.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up there. I roam the island, I sleep with the island, I eat with the island, I fish with the island. It\u2019s a lovely place,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mass was held early evening yesterday at the side of the 13 Fishermen\u2019s Monument, with a crowd gathered under tents and a pavilion.<\/p>\n

One boy, Devin Aldan, was seen standing at the monument during Mass. When Saipan Tribune asked if he was related to any of the 13 fishermen, he pointed to Isidro Romolor\u2019s name engraved in stone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s my mom\u2019s dad,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Patrick Romolor was 19 when he lost his father, Isidro Romolor, almost 30 years ago….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":180036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[160,163,541,38],"class_list":["post-180034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-beach-road","tag-kids","tag-northern-islands","tag-saipan-tribune"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}