My Deli Man Is Going to Egypt

I have the best deli man in all of Manhattan, possibly in all the world. I've lived in this apartment for 3 years now and when we first moved in Al and I befriended our deli man pretty early on. We grew to consider him our "Uncle Rafi". He is by far the most poplular guy in the neighborhood and every customer greets him like an old friend. I know more about him and his life and he about mine than some of my real family members. He's our blocks equivlent of the neighborhood bartender. He knows if I'm having a bad night and freely offers words of advice and comfort, he proudly shares the pictures of his neice/godaughters wedding, and tells stories of smoking the houka (how do you spell that?) with his friends in Brooklyn on his one day off a week. When there was a homeless man sleeping on my stoop and blocking the door Al and I didn't want to get the guy in trouble by finding a cop, it was cold and raining, but we were a little leary about trying to climb over him. So we went to Rafi and he sent the sandwhich kid to escort us home and persuade the guy to move over enough to let us in. When I was getting hit on by a very drunk and very sketchy 50 yr old man while trying to buy my cigarettes one night Rafi had his business partner walk me to the corner and wait until I was safely in my building after he saw the drunk man hanging around outside waiting for me. In short, he's the best. And now he's off to Egypt for 2 months. Every two years, he goes back home to see his family there and relax before returning to his 6 nights a week work schedule. I'll miss him, but his replacement this time seems more promising than the last one. He too is friendly and will at least chat about the weather. I'll miss Rafi though b/c for me, he brings a sense of community to a city that can be so huge and impersonal. He's like a little piece of old New York, when neighborhoods really were communities.