When he was a student at Starehe Boys, Ken Okoth explained to his classmates why he put on glasses.
According to a close friend he met at the elite school, Ken Okoth wore spectacles because of the impact that exposure to tin lamp light had on his eyesight while burning the midnight oil reading.
The Kibra MP came from a very poor background which meant that his family could only afford a tin lamp as a source of light.
"The level of difficulty was tough. It was very hard. I remember him saying, for example, he wore spectacles and he used to say, "I would not be wearing spectacles had I not had a tin lamp, " John Kinuthia, Ken Okoth's friend, said in an exclusive interview with NTV.
Ken Okoth kept wearing the glasses well into his adulthood and career as a politician.
They were, in a sense, an extension of himself.
He died on Friday moments after being taken ill into the ICU unit of a Nairobi hospital.
The lawmaker cut out a personable figure and a reputation for calmness and reasoned debate, traits that saw some of his ODM critics describe him as a traitor.
Constituents mourned him as a great leader who put their interests above self.