- Ida Odinga opened up about the moment she received news of Raila Odinga's death while he was in India
- The former Prime Minister's wife revealed that their last conversation gave no indication that anything was wrong
- Ida admitted she has continued to struggle with accepting Raila's passing more than a year later
Ida Odinga has spoken candidly about the profound grief she has carried since the death of her husband, former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, describing how she sometimes catches herself waiting for him to walk through the door late at night.
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Speaking in an emotional account of the period surrounding Raila's passing in an interview with Citizen TV, Ida said their final conversation, held the evening before he died, was entirely unremarkable. There were no warning signs, no sense of urgency, and Raila himself told her he was feeling well.
"The eve before he passed on, we talked quite a lot, and we were just talking about ordinary things. There was nothing. There was no alarm. There was nothing that could suggest that he was unwell. And he even assured me he was very fine," she recalled.
How Ida Received the News
The following morning, Raila's sister, Dr Akini Wainaina, reached out to Ida and urged her to contact another sister, Ruth Adhiambo, who was with the former Prime Minister in India. When Ida was unable to get through to Ruth, she called Winnie, who told her that Raila had collapsed during a walk and that doctors were working to revive him.
The situation deteriorated rapidly. Within roughly ten minutes, Winnie called again.
"Winnie calls me and tells me, 'Mom, we've lost the battle.' And I say, 'What? What are you saying?' Then she says, 'Dad is gone.' And that is how I received the news," Ida recounted.
A Grief That Has Not Eased
More than a year on, Ida said coming to terms with her husband's absence has remained a daily challenge. There are moments, she admitted, when the reality of his death still does not feel real.
"Since that time, it has not been very easy. It has been difficult because sometimes, personally, I don't believe he's gone," she said.
The hardest moments, she explained, come when she returns home in the evenings. Because Raila was often out late, old habits of waiting for him have persisted, and she finds herself holding on to the expectation that he will eventually arrive, until the quiet of the night reminds her otherwise.
"Sometimes when I go home, when he was here, he was used to — sometimes he would stay and come home late. So every time I go home, I keep on hoping that he's going to come back. He's going to come. And you wait and wait until late hours. Then you realise he's not coming," she said.
Ida's account offers a deeply personal window into the loss behind the public mourning of one of Kenya's most consequential political figures, reflecting the private grief of a woman still learning to live without him.
Source: TUKO.co.ke