Raul Castro’s wife, first lady of Cuban revolution, dies

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.