But then, later, I had these same people sitting in here crying. You don't know how you're going to feel until it happens to you. All Pets Go to Heaven has been in operation for two years now and it seems very much part of the neighborhood. It's housed in a large, handsome brownstone on a street of brownstones. Raymond's parents own the building and his brother lives upstairs.
Brown awnings shade the windows and are stamped with the silhouettes of rabbits and frogs.
Even though every year more and more hip young Manhattanites are moving into Carroll Gardens, it still feels like a working-class Italian neighborhood. There are religious shrines in some of the front yards and small markets run by fathers and their sons. And there's the pet funeral home. As soon as I stepped into the viewing parlor and saw the small, powder-blue coffin for the small male dog or cat, I knew I was among people who weren't afraid of family feeling. He's being buried this morning.