I volunteer at a food pantry where, among the bread, produce and other necessities, we sometimes have flowers.

The flowers always go.

I've watched people make careful choices about groceries — what they need, what their families will eat and what they can carry home — and still make room for flowers.

It made me wonder whether we've drawn the line around "basic needs" too tightly.

Food is a basic need. Beauty isn't — at least not in the way we usually define it.

And yet beauty brings pleasure. It changes a room. It can make an ordinary Tuesday feel a little less ordinary.

But there is something else I've noticed.

The flowers aren't always for the person choosing them. They're for a mother, a neighbor, a friend. Someone who could use a little beauty in their day.

The flowers aren't only about wanting something beautiful.

They're about having something beautiful to give.

That small distinction feels important.

We tend to think of giving and receiving as opposite roles. One person has something. Another needs something.

But that's rarely how people actually work.

Needing something today doesn't mean you have nothing to give.

We can need help in one part of our lives and have plenty to offer in another.

The problem comes when the thing someone needs becomes the way we see the person.

There is a profound difference between being cared for and being seen only as someone who needs care.

One is something that happens to all of us at different points in our lives. The other can become an identity.

When we're trying to help, it's natural to focus on what's needed. Sometimes that makes it harder to see what's already there.

Think about an aging parent.

As they begin to need more help, it's natural to focus on what has become harder. We step in because we love them.

But somewhere along the way, we can stop asking for their advice. Stop needing their recipes. Stop asking them for help.

Without meaning to, we can become so focused on caring for someone that we leave fewer opportunities for them to care for us.

The help isn't the problem.

Letting it become the whole relationship is.

What do you need?

It may be one of the most compassionate questions we can ask another person.

But perhaps it shouldn't stand alone.

Maybe beside it belongs another:

What do you have to give?

Not as an obligation or the price of receiving help. Just because needing something doesn't make everything else we carry disappear.

Maybe that's part of dignity too.

Recognizing that people are rarely only givers or receivers. We can be receiving in one part of our lives and giving generously in another.

What if dignity isn't only about having our needs met?

What if part of dignity is having something to give?

The person carrying flowers out of the pantry isn't just a recipient anymore.