For more than four decades, former Prime Minister Raila Odinga has redefined politics in Kenya after seemingly taking the mantle from his father, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga.
He spearheaded the country's fierce opposition until his March 9, 2018, handshake with President Uhuru Kenyatta and had seemed to have kept his father's dream alive.
But as much as the story of his father is well documented across the world, that of his mother, Mary Ajuma, has largely remained in the shadows.
Contrary to what many people may think, Juma was a no-nonsense parent who never settled for less.
Although her birth details remain scanty, Kenyans.co.ke has previously revealed that Ms Juma passed away on November 5, 1984, while Raila was still detained at Shimo la Tewa Prison and only learned about it through a note from his friend.
Juma hailed from Alego, which lies within Usonga Constituency in Siaya County.
Jaramog depicted her as a no-nonsense person in his 1967 book, Not Yet Uhuru, revealing that she left him for six months after they fell out.
The founding vice president narrated that in 1943, shortly after Oburu Odinga was born, she ordered Juma around on how to take care of their firstborn child, but she took off.
"Our first son was born in October. I behaved like a new father who had a new possession all to himself. I treated my wife as I handled my students. I gave her a timetable by which she was to suckle, wash and care for the child.
"For my wife, this was the last straw. Like me, she is hot-tempered, though her temper cools fast," he wrote.
In Raila's book, The Flame of Freedom, he wrote that Jaramogi had hit his wife before she took off.
She also deserted her husband on another occasion, during the baptism of their children at the Church Mission Society in Maseno after he insisted that they be given African names.
In another instance, Juma ostensibly scolded a teacher at Maranda High School in the 1950s for reportedly punishing Raila and Oburu.
She had wanted the two to look after their siblings while she attended a funeral and was upset when she discovered they had been punished regardless.
