AT A time like this, a conversation with the Kasrilses would invariably lean towards commiserating with them over the loss of mom and wife, Eleanor, who died last year.
An incurable romantic, Ronnie Kasrils has thrown his adoration for his late wife into the book he wrote about her life, The Unlikely Secret Agent.
"Writing about Eleanor was very therapeutic. It was a cathartic thing."
Son Andrew, one of two boys, confesses to being a mommy's boy.
They are both clearly coming out well from the pit of mourning their dearly departed. There's a lot of laughter between them that fills their Parkhurst, Johannesburg, home with warmth.
"Yes, I think it is the case. It does happen with bereavement that the surviving parent does come closer to the offspring," says Ronnie.
Like all widowers he finds that he has to play the mothering role as well. Father and son concur that sharing grief generally brings families together. The children have been his greatest comforters, Red Ron, the old communist, admits.
"I feel closer to all three of them."
Life in exile has always kept the Kasrilses closer together, except when dad was called away on ANC duty to faraway lands. Andrew says he and Christopher, who is still in London, and their sister Brigid, Eleanor's child from a previous marriage, have always had a present father despite the demands of his work in the liberation movement.
"There was never a feeling of an absent father figure even when dad was away and we didn't know where he was," says Andrew, who speaks with a booming music lover's voice that's edging towards a baritone.
Growing up during the Struggle, they had to get used to the idea of dad not being around much.
"But now, with mom gone, there's been increased solidarity, something for us to rally around," the boy says.
After 1976, leaders like his father were called on to solidify the ANC, working to help newly arrived exiles to settle and his dad' s absence from home began in earnest. Before this, they were always able to see both parents in a semblance of normality, he says.
Ronnie chips in: "For the first 10 years of Andrew's life and eight of Christopher's, we made sure we went to the seaside and, yes, I made sand castles for them."
This was a period of strong family bonding. Thereafter the ANC recalled Kasrils to the camps in Africa and "I would then see them once a year or, if lucky, three times, for a few weeks at a time".
But he wrote and called often.
There's a striking resemblance between father and son that I just had to ask: What makes Andrew his father's son?
Dad butts in to say he's more of a mommy's boy. This, Andrew, who used to spend hours on the phone with his mom jotting down recipes and other culinary hints, readily admits to. And they both laugh out loud.
Eleanor had a tremendous love for her children, her husband of 45 years says.
Andrew says what he takes from his father is his optimism.
"What I've seen in my parents, even in the dark days of apartheid, was the spirit to never give up. That we could liberate this country."
His friends, children of other struggle parents, shared this optimism too.
South Africa, for the old communist and past cabinet minister in both the Mandela and Mbeki administrations, has turned into what he'd given his life to achieve. It is a country he's proud to bequeath to his children and hordes of others, he says.
"We've got the most wonderful country. I wouldn't change this country for any other. I've visited countless countries, but this is special. This is where I was born. This is the country I struggled for."
It is for this reason that he feels duty-bound to step in and correct things when they go haywire. It is not easy to govern a country, any country, he says, but he will not stand by and watch things go pear-shaped.
Kasrils' forthrightness has rubbed some people up the wrong way, with fellow Jews branding him a self-hating Jew for his stand against Israel's bellicose conduct in occupied Palestine.
He's also been very scathing about the excesses of his own comrades now running the country.
Going against the grain has always been a family trait, one Andrew is even proud to admit to.
"Very much so. I was always counted among the rebels in my group."
Though he did his fair share of underground duty in the ANC camps - he was in Angola in 1987-8 - he went into arts and culture.
"Exciting adventures," he calls them, while the thought was that, like the son of activists, he'd go into politics. He also put in some work in the ANC's propaganda machine "printing leaflets and pamphlets".
Back home he left a secure job at foreign affairs to pursue his love for DJ-ing: "Not many parents would take kindly to that, but I didn't have to explain myself to them."
He talks about working with Senyaka, Pitch Black Afro and other un-political names and pursuits.
"I went my way and was encouraged to."
This involvement earned Andrew the monicker The Admiral, by which he's largely known.
They talk about soccer - Arsenal, whose games dad took them to.
"Absolute fanatics," he says of their relationship with the Gunners. They went to 10 World Cup games together. They also talk a lot about films. And they laugh a lot.
Eleanor should be content watching over this pair and Chris, Brigid and her own children.
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