About a decade ago I attended a funeral for an old friend of my family. She was a lovely lady that lived until she was 85 and died of cancer. She lived a long life, had a wonderful family and when she got the cancer diagnosis she said she was done getting treatment (it was a serious one so any treatment would only just extend her life maybe a few extra months).



She was not Mormon but one of her 8 living children was a convert to Mormon.



During the funeral one of her other kids spoke about her and told a few wonderful stories about this lovely lady. He talked about how much she loved drinking her coca cola each day and as a tribute to her he asked all his siblings & their family to come up front and together they did a toast to mom. But instead of alcohol they were going to do a toast with coca-cola.



Everyone thought it was a nice tribute but the one kid, the mormon, stood up there and refused the glass of coke handed to him. His brother even looked at him and said 'just take the glass and raise it for mom'. The guy still refused the glass because 'I'm mormon we don't touch that stuff'.



I just thought it was so rude. Sure it was nice to stick with the faith but hell, he could have just taken the damn glass and held it out of respect for his mother. Instead he just stood there and scowled the entire time.



Sure perhaps someone could say about 'respecting his rights' but really - a damn glass of soda. YOu couldn't just hold it to be a part of what was a lovely family moment paying respect to a wonderful mother.