Going to a funeral today.  This  old blackfoot quote comes to mind:

What is life?  It is a flash of a firefly in the night.  It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.  It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.

On being Metis

The following is a quote from the book Manitowapow. This speaks strongly to my experience and it is put nicely into words here. As an aside I am darker now than in my younger years. An older relative said this would be so and it is.
                                              
 Very polite and amiable people, may sometimes say to a Metis, "You don't look at all like a Metis. You surely can't have much Indian blood. Why, you could pass anywhere for pure White." The Metis, a trifle disconcerted by the tone of these remarks would like to lay claim to both sides of his origin. But fear of upsetting or totally dispelling these kind assumptions holds him back. While he is hesitating to choose among the different replies that come to mind, words like these succeed in silencing him completely. "Ah! bah! You have scarcely and Indian blood. You haven't enough worth mentioning". Here is how the Metis think privately.

  "It is true that our Indian origin is humble, but it is indeed just that we honour our mothers as well as our fathers. why should we be so preoccupied with what degree of mingling we have of European and Indian blood? No matter how little we have of one of the other, do not both gratitude and filial love require us to make a point of saying, "we are Metis". 
                                    
Manitowapow is a book worth reading, especially if you have history on the Prairies.