"The jury found him not guilty. I was devastated." - Ricardo Wiggs

On the night of the shooting, they wheeled me into my room before surgery. My new roommate is looking at the TV and they show my house. The guy says, "Man, they shot and killed this man and woman!" I said, "No, they didn't kill me." He said, "Oh, man-that was your wife? I'm so sorry. Man, you know what? You got a nice house." I could not help but laugh. I had just gone through the most traumatic thing in my life, and all this guy has to say is that I have a nice house. But I had to get back on my feet and get this nice house back in order!

After our 1986 wedding, a former boyfriend of Sharon's started following her. Her car was vandalized a number of times. Then, in 1992, the stalker's brother came to the door and said he had a gift for her. He had a shotgun. I grabbed my girls and ran to the back bedroom; then I charged him. He shot me, and then went after Sharon. They were loading me in the ambulance when I heard it come over the radio, "Second victim, DOA." I said, "They're talking about my wife!" The attendant just nodded. At that moment, the first thought that came to my mind was, "I'm going to raise my girls."

My girls were 4 years and 5 months old. Sharon and I had shared responsibilities for taking care of them, but in the house, Sharon was necessity and I was entertainment. So I had to start taking care of my family. I wasn't prepared for it to be this way, but it wasn't going to be an impossible task.

When I was a young man, my grandmother, who had raised me, suffered a stroke. From 1978 to 1990, when she passed, I was pretty much her primary caretaker. After a full day's work, I would drive across town to the house I grew up in, and I would feed her, bathe her, put her to bed. I guess that gave me strength to be able to take care of someone who needs it.

There was a trial and the jury found him not guilty. I was devastated. It was as if 12 people stood there and reloaded the shotgun. When I walked out of the courtroom, I told a television reporter, "When I left my house this morning, I told my daughter that Daddy would get the bad man that killed Mommy. Now I have to go home and tell them I didn't."

A major decision for me was not to take revenge. I'd never been a man of evil spirit. I don't walk about with a Bible. But I always knew it was my place in this life to do the right thing, and vindication would not have been the right thing. But I do still have to continually fight those thoughts. They come to mind at times like anniversaries or holidays.

Another decision I made was to move forward. I felt if I didn't make progress in my professional life as a systems analyst, I would have failed in supporting my family. But the decision to help others was not one that was hard because this has been a part of my life. My grandmother was a person who helped everyone, and, when no one was there to help her, I knew it was my job.

I lost my grandmother, I lost Sharon; then I lost my mother. Three key women in my life who made a difference in me being who I am, in how I lived my life-all left me in the '90s. Having these things happen made me not strong, but accepting. There is delivery, and acceptance is the biggest part of delivery-acceptance that this will be my life, that this is normal. This is where I am now. I'm going to change what I can and accept what I cannot change.

I will never have full justice in my case. Full justice would have been a conviction. But making sure that some other people are going to be safe is justice for me. I worked to enforce stiffer penalties for stalking, because that was the cause of my wife's death. Maryland did pass the bill, and now there's an interstate stalking bill that was signed by the President. I was invited to the White House to witness the signing. So there is justice.

I want to be known as a survivor rather than a victim. I've been through the loss of my grandmother, the family's neglect of her caretaking in her final years. I've survived my mother's cancer. I've been through homicide and have been shot myself-I've been that close to death. I'm like the paperboy: no matter what happens-rain, snow-you're going to see me deliver the news.