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The following article was published in The Lowell Sun, Lowell, Massachusetts, on Saturday, August 24, 2002
Local Author Has Words of Consolation
For Pet Lovers
By LINA PHENG
The Lowell Sun Staff
TYNGSBORO – Does heaven really exist? If so, do animals get to go, too?
It may seem irrelevant to ask, but to animal lovers who have suffered the loss of a pet, it is a question of faith.
Pet owners know that animals are affectionate creatures. They add love and fulfillment to everyday life. Studies have shown that people who have pets live longer and healthier. But what happens to animals when they die?
Niki Shanahan believes she has an answer and has set it forth in a book called There Is Eternal Life For Animals. In the book she offers comfort and relief to help readers cope with the loss of their pets. More significantly, Shanahan has assembled evidence from both Greek and Hebrew versions of the Bible to show there is eternal life for all creatures, including animals.
“The Bible is all that is left from God, and in the scriptures in the book of Psalms, it says that God will preserve man and beast,” she says.
Shanahan, who lives in Tyngsboro with her husband, Jack, says it was her husband who got her started loving animals as she recalled her first cat, Pete.
“I wasn’t used to having pets growing up. When Pete entered my life it was different and we had a bond,” Shanahan says. “He didn’t belong to us at first, but things worked out. The owner was getting married and her fiancée had a dog that didn’t tolerate other animals. My husband and I ended up adopting him when he was eight years old. He lived to be 21 years old.”
When both Pete and Shanahan’s father passed away, she became very sad. She missed her father – and her cat.
“Pete was such a great companion. He was like a son to us,” she says. “I missed watching his beautiful green eyes.”
It was hard to let go at first, Shanahan recalls, but she did find a way. She spent time studying scripture and everything started to look better again. Pete gave her a new inspiration, an inspiration to write.
“This book represents God’s eternal plan for both mankind and animals. I wanted to share this hope for the future with as many people as I could, because it was so helpful to me. I was glad that I could do the research and find all this information to help others look forward to the future,” she says.
She and her husband now own two cats, Luke and Joey. “They are really special, but there’s only one Pete.”