A mother gently prods her daughter who just started a new career in Britain to “leave everything” and come home.

A newlywed couple who met online and remain thousands of kilometres apart wonder when they’ll be able to embrace each other again.

Parents wrestle over the question: Is it safe for our kids to play together?

Children plead with their father vacationing in Florida to stop dithering and take the coronavirus pandemic seriously.

A mother raised in Albania tries to impart to her daughter Communist-era advice, including what to do when the toilet paper runs out.

As Canadians hunker down in their homes to try to thwart the spread of COVID-19, they are turning to their phones to stay on top of the latest information and keep in touch with friends and loved ones, memorializing in hastily thumbed texts their anxieties, frustrations and resolve.

In an effort to get a snapshot of the ever-shifting mood of the nation, the Star asked readers to share excerpts of some of their intimate texts.

The submissions capture poignant expressions of concern, as well as humorous moments of levity to get through an uncertain time.

‘Leave immediately’ — The Khozema family

After completing a six-week internship with the CBC in London, England, last fall, budding journalist Zahra Khozema landed a dream job at a magazine in the city.

“I genuinely love my job,” she told the Star.

As the COVID-19 outbreak worsened and travel restrictions started to be imposed last week, the 24-year-old from Markham, Ont., had a critical decision to make: return to Canada or stay?

Some friends urged her to get on a plane.

“Like rioting and s--- it’s gonna happen soon,” her friend Nabeel Malik wrote in a text.

“No way,” Zahra replied. “Ur being crazy.”

Her younger sister, Batool Khozema, who lives in Ottawa, also weighed in.

“Are you coming back,” she inquired.

“No I don’t think so,” Zahra wrote. “You have to keep mom calm.”

“OK I’ll try,” the younger sibling said. “But Trud(eau) says to come home so I’m not sure what you wanna do.”

She added that health care in Canada is “by far the best.”

Zahra’s mother, Zainab Khozema, sent a separate text.

“Baby very worried about u,” she wrote.

“Hi mama,” Zahra replied. “What’s wrong.”

Her mother got to the point.

“Just worried about ur health. Leave everything n come back or go to karachi.” (Zahra was born in Pakistan and her father lives there).

“Mom I’ll be fine,” she wrote back. To soften the blow, she posted a picture of a mug that she plans to send to her mom for Mother’s Day. “MUM, WE ALL KNOW I’M YOUR FAVOURITE,” it says on the side.

Zahra told the Star she slept on it and ultimately made the decision to stay put. It was not easy. Her mom is a brain cancer survivor and lives alone.

But when she learned that her younger sister was going to ride things out back at the family home, it gave her peace of mind.

She calls or texts her mom daily.

“With self-isolation and a time difference, texting is everything, especially for my mental health. Not only do we update on coronavirus news, but it helps me check in and calms my anxiety knowing my mom is OK when I see her responding.”

‘Are you doing play dates?’ — Kas Lingenfelter & Natasha Upal

Kas Lingenfelter of Toronto says she’s been doing her best to explain to her nine-year-old autistic son why their weekly routines — trips to the therapist and visits to the library — have come to an abrupt stop.

On top of that, she has a restless 12-year-old son who wants to go to the movies and hang out with his friends.

“Being in a house all day has been challenging,” she told the Star.

“This is a whole new world for us now.”

One of the big questions she’s had to contend with is whether to allow any form of social interaction with other kids.

Last week, she texted a friend, Natasha Upal, inviting one of her kids to come over to play Xbox.

“Are you doing play dates?” Upal responded. “We’re not : (”

“They said it was safe to keep small and safe circles where nobody has travelled,” Lingenfelter replied. “So not a group of kids you don’t know.”

But Upal was skeptical.

“Yeah I’m not really taking what they say at face value right now … Nope, really trying to minimize all exposure.”

Lingenfelter cited an article quoting an epidemiologist who said play dates for young children should be small, but that school-age kids could gather in larger groups since they usually practise better personal hygiene.

But Upal said community spread was growing and social distancing was critical.

“Keep off the play structures where multiple hands are touching,” Upal wrote. “Bike rides etc are good.”

Upal, who has three children between the ages of six and 12, told the Star it has been a bit “socially awkward” having to turn down play dates. Her younger kids also haven’t grasped how long the restrictions could last.

“They see it as very temporary,” she said. “But we have been very open and transparent and told them that there is a virus that lots of people are getting sick from, so we can all do our part by staying inside and away from others.”

It’s frustrating because experts seem to be sending out “mixed messages,” Lingenfelter said.

“I feel like it’s a lot to keep up with.”

After allowing her 12-year-old to go to a friend’s house Sunday, she is now playing it safe.

Outdoor play is limited to the backyard. Even bike rides are off-limits, since kids might stop to chat with one another.

They’ll do family walks on Yonge Street, but only when it’s quiet and always maintaining a safe social distance.

“We’re being very vigilant there’s as little contact as possible and not bringing things into the house.”

‘Please can dad stay in the basement’ — The Ruberto family

Give it to the Ruberto family for finding moments of levity in a global pandemic.

As Maurizio Ruberto was vacationing in Pompano Beach, Fla., last week with his snowbird parents, his family back home in Woodbridge, Ont., was urging him to cut the trip short.

New COVID-19 cases were being reported in Florida and local states of emergency were being declared.

“Tell your parents to pack up and come home babe,” his wife, Cathy, wrote in the family’s group chat titled “Famiglia.”

But with people still crowding the beaches, Maurizio wasn’t taking things too seriously, his daughter Samantha told the Star.

“We banter back and forth quite a bit in the family group chat and at the dinner table — it stems from my dad really, he’s the goofy one.”

To convey the urgency of the situation back home, Cathy texted images of barren shelves at the grocery store. “No food. No meat,” she wrote.

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Samantha, a student at the University of Guelph-Humber, chimed in.

“Please can dad stay in the basement” when he returns home, she wrote.

“How about u stay in the basement since u not going to school or work for 2 weeks,” he wrote back.

Last Saturday, the day before he was to fly home, Samantha texted again the importance that her father go into quarantine upon his return.

“Dad please don’t hug or kiss anyone when you get home.”

In a response that would turn into a running joke in the family, Maurizio, who isn’t the best speller according to Samantha, replied: “Why don’t you corinti urself.”

Julia, one of Maurizio’s other children, couldn’t resist a dig.

“Why don’t you corintini yourself.”

“Corintini a la vodka …”

She suggested he stay in the shed and cook corintini for a bit. (Corintini is not an actual pasta.)

The dad jokes didn’t stop there.

Heeding his family’s advice, Maurizio donned gloves after getting off the plane in Toronto. But it didn’t dawn on him that he should probably ditch those gloves before he got into his car.

So when he texted a picture of himself driving back home with his gloved hand on the steering wheel, it once again led to mocking from his family.

“He had just touched half the airport with them,” Samantha said. “My sister Julia was the one that was, like, ‘Oh god, Dad. Good try.’”

With the entire family sequestered in the same house now, the constant jabs have “helped calm the angst,” Samantha said.

Earlier this week at the dinner table, Maurizio asked for the corintini, she said.

“We said he can go to the basement to get it.”

‘Is this short term? We don’t know’ — Paul and Saori McClure

Paul and Saori McClure’s love story sparked, flourished and took flight online.

Now, with an ocean between them and coronavirus-related travel lockdowns seemingly expanding by the day, that’s where their relationship will stay. The couple was married just last month, and Saori, who lives in Japan, has applied for permanent residency in Canada, but doesn’t have it yet.

So for now, they message.

Dozens of notes a day zip back and forth across the Pacific: When they wake up, have a lunch break, or just get a spare moment to breathe. That’s in addition to two or three phone calls a day.

“Before all this stuff happened, when we were dating, I kept saying ‘short term pain for long term gain,’ ” Paul says. In the year the couple has been together, they’ve met in person just four times, and had been eagerly looking forward to moving into Paul’s Oakville condo together.

“It’s harder now, because is this short term? We don’t know.”

Just a couple of months ago, Saori and Paul’s messages were just like any other couple, as they chatted about work stresses and the playlist for their wedding.

Mentions of a new global illness began to creep in. Then, as Paul phrases it “S- hit the fan,” with news that Sophie Grégoire Trudeau had tested positive. “Oh my! Really?” came Saori’s immediate response.

Living in two different countries means they’ve experienced the spread of the illness differently, Paul says. While Canada committed to social distancing, it hasn’t been pushed as hard in Japan. While taking pains to stay at home in Ontario, he’s been watching Japanese news to stay up to speed. This week he watched, incredulously, as the Olympic flame was flown in from Greece and handed over — no social distancing required — to Japanese officials.

“I’m just worried that they may have a spike,” he says.

In a recent Facebook post, Saori echoed his concern and questions why people in Japan aren’t required to stay home more. “There are still people on the train, going out and eating and drinking,” she writes in Japanese. “I’m worried about it.”

But, a silver lining is that he and Saori are well versed in the art of keeping a relationship afloat via text, a challenge many around the world will face in the coming months.

“Even though it’s hard right now, still make plans,” Paul advises others who may be in the same situation — he refuses to cancel Saori’s flight for a planned trip in July, just in case. “Don’t be afraid to cry, even if you’re feeling down and don’t want to upset them — they need to know how you’re feeling.”

The couple has begun discussing names for their future kids — they’re hoping for girls. They’re also reading the same book, “Smart Couples Finish Rich,” he in English, she in Japanese.

For now, the messages continue.

“She’s crying some days, I’m crying some days. It’s tough waking up alone.”

‘It’s extremely comforting in a way I didn’t know I needed’ — The Harito family

People around the world are panicking about toilet paper, but not Merita Harito. You could say she’s been training for this her whole life.

“I have a bookcase full of books in the basement that will come in handy if I run out of toilet paper,” she recently wrote in a playful WhatsApp message to her daughter Lori, who owns a communications agency in Toronto.

During military training in high school, she continues, she used leaves as toilet paper for two weeks. “The communist system has trained me well for survival!”

Lori describes her mother as the kindest person, and someone who has always taken care of others, something that hasn’t changed with the spread of coronavirus. “She’s very busy chatting and texting and checking in with all of us and bless her, she’s just discovered emojis,” Lori laughs.

Lori grew up steeped in family traditions, eating garlic and drinking bone broth as was once common in Albania, but she said she never quite grasped the full context of her mother’s stories of hardship — until now.

Merita grew up in communist Albania, where life was defined by always looking over your shoulder, her daughter Lori explains. Fear was everywhere: fear of the government, of running out of food, of being seen as being disloyal to the state. Still, people learned to be creative with food and with cleaning products, which were always in short supply.

Now, as people are urged to stay home to prevent the spread of coronavirus and panicked buyers strip grocery store shelves, Lori says her mom has been using her experience of life under communism to help her family.

“I keep telling her, ‘Mom, I’m stressed! I don’t know what’s going to happen,’ ” Lori says. “And she’s just very calm. She’s treating it as being able to take a step back and doing what you can with the resources that you have.”

In her message, Merita suggests using cucumber skin and peaches (lekure kastraveci dhe pjeshke) on your face or olive oil (vaj uliri) for rashes.

They’re practical tips to be sure, but they’re more than that, too. Her mother’s stories have built a tangible bridge to the past, and reminded Lori that hers is just the latest chapter in her family’s story.

Her grandmother survived wartime, her mother lived under a dictatorship, and this, too, will pass.

“She just keeps reminding us that everything comes in waves and there will be ups and downs and that as a family, we’re very resilient and can handle it,” she says.

“It’s extremely comforting in a way that I didn’t know I needed.”