Vilma Espin Guillois, the wife of acting president Raul Castro and a former rebel fighter who served for decades as first lady of the Cuban revolution, was mourned across the island on Tuesday.Espin, 77, died on Monday after “the long illness she was afflicted with” worsened in recent weeks, according to Cuban state television. Authorities did not disclose the illness, but she was said to suffer from severe circulatory problems in recent years.An official period of mourning was in effect through Tuesday as Cubans remembered Espin both as a guerrilla fighter who helped bring her future husband Raul and brother-in-law Fidel to power a half-century ago, and as the driving force for Cuban women’s equality in the decades since then. Espin’s death was likely to have a profound emotional impact on the Castro brothers at a critical moment in Cuban history. She is the most important revolutionary figure to die since Celia Sanchez, another rebel fighter who was Fidel’s closest confidant, succumbed to cancer in 1980.
