Slain teacher's widow: "He would do it for anyone he loved"

(CBS News) Students at Sparks Middle School in Nevada returned to classes this week for the first time since a deadly shooting last Monday. A 12-year-old student shot and killed Michael Landsberry, a popular math teacher who tried to stop the boy.

His widow, Sharon Landsberry, talked about their last morning together with CBS Reno affiliate KTVN.

She said every morning, as Michael Landsberry left for work, he'd leave a note for her while she was sleeping.

"He'd get my coffee cup out, put a sticky note on it and write 'Hey, my beautiful wife' or 'Have a good day, I love you.' It was always different every day but the last part was 'I love you,'" she said.

Sharon Landsberry saved just about every single one of those notes, but she was awake last Monday to see her husband off to work.

"That morning when he left the last words I heard from him was 'Have a good day my beautiful wife, I can't wait to be home with you and go home for our walk and I love you,'" she said. "And I turned, 'I love you too, you have a good day' and he walked out the door."

About an hour later, word spread about a shooting in the schoolyard.

"When I first heard this going and - I didn't get a text message back from him - I know and when it transpired that it was on school grounds, I knew exactly what he did. I know that he stopped it," said Sharon Landsberry.

Her husband was trying to talk down the 12-year-old shooter, when he himself was fatally gunned down.

Sharon Landsberry wasn't surprised the former Marine and teacher for 12 years had the courage to step up.

"He's always said and he's told the kids that he would protect them and that's exactly what he did," she said. "He would do it for anyone he loved."

The shooting happened just three days after the couple's fifth wedding anniversary, and Sharon Landsberry isn't holding onto any resentment.

"I had a love that most people will never ever experience and I'm so grateful that I got the chance to experience it with him," she said. "We'll continue to move forward just like Mike would want us to do and be strong and do something positive out of what happened."