October 1

October 1 is the date of the rainy night when a woman’s father-in-law died after falling asleep on streetcar tracks while drunk. Three years later, his death remains present in the family through his widow’s panic attacks, which worsen in the rain; the date therefore marks not only a death but the beginning of an ongoing pattern of grief and care.

The Night of the Death

The woman recounts that her father-in-law was killed by a streetcar on October 1, three years before she told the story. It was pouring that night. He was completely drunk and, as she explains, would not otherwise have fallen asleep on the tracks. The account makes the circumstances specific: rain, intoxication, and the increasingly uncommon streetcar meet in a single fatal event.

The Date’s Continuing Effects

After her father-in-law died, his wife moved from the temple where they had lived together into an apartment in the same Shinagawa condominium as her son and daughter-in-law. She lived alone two floors below them. The woman reported that her mother-in-law began having panic attacks after the death, with symptoms apparently worse when it rained. The connection to the rainy night is offered as a likely explanation, not as a confirmed medical cause.

Family Care and Recurrence

When the panic attacks became severe, the mother-in-law called her son and he went downstairs to calm her and reassure her. If he was away, his wife went instead. The October 1 death thus continues to organize the family’s routines: a past event returns through the widow’s recurring distress and the repeated acts of care that follow. In the account, the date is a point of reference for an aftermath still unfolding three years later.